Eminent doctors: Their lives and their work; Vol. 1 of 2

by G. T. Bettany

Astley Cooper was the grandson of a surgeon at Norwich. His father was a very estimable clergyman in Norfolk; his mother wrote novels of some repute, and was noted for her benevolence and unselfishness. Astley, the fourth son of a numerous family, was born on August 23, 1768. His youth was marked by a succession of hairbreadth escapes and exploits, demanding coolness and audacity. He had no great taste for classics or literature in youth or through life. As a youth he had a handsome and expressive countenance, with much openness of manner and liveliness of conversation, so that he often charmed those who disapproved of his wild freaks. Like John Hunter, he had a free youth, and if unimproved was likewise unspoiled by systematic training.

Both the grandfather and the uncle of Astley Cooper, the latter a lecturer at Guy’s, are credited with some share in exciting a surgical bias in the boy’s mind. Visiting the Norwich hospital one day, and seeing a striking operation, he was strongly impressed with the utility of surgery. In 1784 a visit from his uncle, the London surgeon, led to the nephew being articled to him; but his progress here was limited, owing to the attraction which a free town-life had for him at first. One day he was met by his uncle disguised in the uniform of an officer, and the former recognising his nephew, the latter denied all knowledge of him. The detection of this escapade was soon followed by his transfer as a pupil from his uncle to Mr. Cline, who then shared with Abernethy the next honours as a surgeon to John Hunter. Under Cline, young Cooper imbibed the spirit of Hunter’s teaching from one of his most enthusiastic pupils: for Cline’s judgment about Hunter was that there seemed no comparison between his great mind and all who had preceded him.

Sir Astley Cooper at a later period thus depicts his old master: “Mr. Cline was a man of excellent judgment, of great caution, of accurate knowledge; particularly taciturn abroad, yet open, friendly, and very conversationable at home. In surgery cool, safe, judicious; in anatomy sufficiently informed. In politics a Democrat, living in friendship with Horne Tooke. In morals thoroughly honest; in religion a Deist. A good husband, son, and father. As a friend sincere, but not active; as an enemy most inveterate.”

Young Cooper was soon actively engaged in dissection, and his adventurous nature found scope in many a night-expedition with the body-snatchers or resurrectionists in their search for “subjects.”

He spent one winter session (1787-8) at Edinburgh, having already made considerable progress in anatomy and surgery. He greatly appreciated Cullen, Black, and Fyfe. Having returned from Edinburgh, he attended John Hunter and other celebrated lecturers, and in 1789, being only 21, he was appointed demonstrator at St. Thomas’s. Two years later Mr. Cline obtained for him the joint lectureship with himself in anatomy and surgery. In December 1791 he married Miss Anne Cock. The wedding was perfectly quiet owing to the recent death of the lady’s father, and on the evening of the same day Astley Cooper lectured on surgery with his usual composure, without any of his pupils becoming aware of his marriage. In June 1792 the young surgeon and his bride visited Paris, and were there during the three terrible months which followed. Cooper spent much time in studying Parisian methods of surgery and in attending the debates of the National Assembly. His safety was secured by a democratic badge, and by friendship with leading revolutionists in England to whom Cline adhered.

In addition to his income from his hospital lectures, Mr. Cooper came into possession by his marriage of a fortune of fourteen thousand pounds, so that he was at once placed beyond any pecuniary anxiety. He consequently was enable to devote himself mainly to study and teaching. He went to the hospital before breakfast to dissect for lecture, and he also demonstrated to students before the lecture-hour. He injected their subjects, lectured from two till half-past three, and three evenings a week lectured on surgery. Further, he persevered in visiting the interesting cases in the hospital and making notes of them. His lectures on surgery, which he was the first in the Borough hospitals to separate from anatomy and physiology, were not at the beginning a conspicuous success. He found that he had been too theoretical, but soon changed his plan, and selected cases in the hospital as the basis of his lectures. From this moment his class increased and became interested. He himself acquired a facility in recalling cases and circumstances illustrative of the disease under consideration which greatly added to the attractiveness of his style. The fact is, he was not the intellectual successor of John Hunter, and could not succeed by similar methods. Yet the influence of Hunter upon him was unmixedly beneficial; he had the wit to perceive that Hunter was not “an imaginative speculator, and any one who believed in him a blockhead and a blacksheep in the profession.” The improved lectures on surgery attracted twice as many entries in 1793 as in 1792, and Mr. Cooper was besides selected as lecturer on anatomy at the College of Surgeons. A chief part of his duties in this latter capacity was to lecture on and dissect the bodies of executed criminals. The lectures were most successfully given to crowded audiences. In 1797 the now rising surgeon removed from his early residence in Jeffries Square, St. Mary Axe, to 12 St. Mary Axe, long occupied by Mr. Cline, who now moved westward. In the next year he had a severe accident, being thrown from his horse on his head, and his life was in considerable danger for some time. The extent of Mr. Cline’s consolatory sympathy, when Cooper was lamenting the risk to his life because of its interference with some professional inquiry likely to be of public benefit, was thus expressed: “Make yourself quite easy, my friend; the result of your disorder, whether fatal or otherwise, will not be thought of the least consequence by mankind.”

An early pupil, Dr. William Roots, however, gives a very different account of Cooper’s “consequence to mankind.” “From the period of Astley’s appointment to Guy’s until the moment of his latest breath, he was everything and all to the suffering and afflicted; his name was a host, but his presence brought confidence and comfort; and I have often observed that on an operating day, should anything occur of an untoward character in the theatre, the moment Astley Cooper entered, and the instrument was in his hand, every difficulty was overcome, and safety generally ensued.” No doubt reference is here made to the fact recorded by Sir Astley himself as follows: “I was always of opinion that Mr. Cline and I gained more reputation at the hospitals by assisting our colleagues than by our own operations, for they were always in scrapes, and we were obliged to help them out of them.”

Mr. Travers, who became Astley Cooper’s articled pupil in 1800, says at that time he was the handsomest, most intelligent-looking and finely formed man he ever saw. According to the custom of his time, he wore his hair powdered, with a queue, and had always a glow of colour in his cheeks. In his daily ride he wore a blue coat and yellow buckskin breeches and top-boots. He was remarkably upright, and moved with grace, vigour, and elasticity, and would not unfrequently throw his well-shaped leg upon the table at lecture, to illustrate some injury or operation on the lower extremity. Cheerfulness of temper amounting to vivacity, and a relish for the ludicrous, never deserted him, and his chuckling laugh, scarce smothered while he told his story, his mirthful look and manner, and his punning habit, were well known. His personal habits were very simple; he drank water at dinner, and took two glasses of port after. A good digestion never forsook him; as he said, “he could digest anything but sawdust.” He was remarkable for requiring little amusement or company beyond what he found in his professional pursuits; and he read comparatively little medical literature.

It has often been alleged that Astley Cooper was somewhat unfeeling in nature; and it must be admitted that he had not a deep sympathy with bodily pain, for his own insusceptibility was equalled by his physical endurance. Yet he always sympathised deeply with mental suffering, and Mr. Travers, who saw him read a posthumous letter from a favourite pupil who had committed suicide, relates that his utterance was choked with sobs, and he wept as for the loss of an only child. That his affection was not restricted to his own immediate family is shown by the fact that on the deeply regretted death of his little daughter he adopted into his family a little girl who was no relative, but whose mother died early; and subsequently he himself brought from Yarmouth in the coach, a twenty hours’ journey, his little nephew, Astley, then two years old, who subsequently became his successor in the baronetcy.

More widely known than the nephew during Sir Astley’s life was his servant, Charles Osbaldeston—a name which in practice softened down into Balderson. He was keenly alive to his master’s interest, and had much tact and disposition for manœuvre; he boasted that in twenty-six years he never lost a patient for his master whom it was possible to retain. Wherever Mr. Cooper was, Charles would start after him, if urgently required, and at any cost of post-horses track him out and bring him triumphantly to the fore.