Mr. Cooper in his earlier years, when anatomy formed a great part of his work, was of necessity largely concerned with the resurrectionists, and was one of the main supporters, it may be equally conceded, of their practices, the details of which he was not unfrequently made acquainted with. But the state of the law, which almost made it impossible to gain possession of subjects for dissection legally, must be accepted as the apology for much that would now as then be regarded as shocking. It cannot be strictly germane to Sir Astley Cooper’s life to describe the procedure of the body-snatchers, as Mr. Bransby Cooper has done;[17] but it may be remarked that on occasions when public notice was threatened, Astley Cooper took prompt steps to obviate injurious publicity of his name. For a time the men of ill-fame reigned supreme, exacting almost what prices they chose. If any demur was made, they stopped the supplies, and then the medical students became angry, held indignation meetings, sent deputations to their teachers, sometimes asserting that their lecturers were not as active or as liberal as those of some rival school, and threatening to leave en masse. Thus the lecturers were in a manner forced to pay more for their subjects than they could receive from their pupils for dissecting them. Another disagreeable consequence was, that when the regular “resurrectionists” got into trouble, the surgeons had to make great exertions in their behalf, and often advanced large sums to defend them, or to keep them and their families during imprisonment. Sir Astley Cooper spent hundreds of pounds in this way. One of his accounts includes £14, 7s. for half the expenses of going down and bailing Vaughan at Yarmouth, £13 for Vaughan’s support during twenty-six weeks’ imprisonment, £50, 8s. for four subjects, paid to Murphy, and six guineas “finishing money” to three men, a douceur at the end of a session.
The high prices paid led some people to offer their bodies before death; but of course this was illegal. Sir Astley’s brief answer to one offer from a third party asking to know the truth, was—“The truth is that you deserve to be hanged for making such an unfeeling offer.” But under other circumstances, when the obtaining of the corpse of a person who had died after an operation interesting to the surgeon was in question, Sir Astley paid large sums, and was thus enabled to add many valuable specimens of surgical results to his museum. Thus his accounts for 1820 show the following entries in regard to obtaining the body of a man on whom he had operated twenty-four years before: “Coach for two there and back, £3, 12s.; guards and coachmen, 6s.; expenses for two days, £1, 14s. 6d; carriage of subject, and porter, 12s. 6d.; subject, £7, 7s.; total, £13, 12s.”
This subject was to be obtained, we read, “cost what it may.” It is no wonder, then, that of Sir Astley it might be said that no man knew so much of the habits, the crimes, and the few good qualities of the resurrectionists. He could obtain any subject he pleased, however guarded: and indeed offered to do so. No one could go further than he did before a Committee of the House of Commons, to whom he plainly avowed: “There is no person, let his situation in life be what it may, whom, if I were disposed to dissect, I could not obtain. The law only enhances the price, and does not prevent the exhumation.” At last the dreadful disclosures about the practices of “burking” in Edinburgh in 1829 led to the passing of the Anatomy Act, legalising dissection under proper regulations.
Nor were human bodies the only ones laid under contribution by Astley Cooper. When animals were wanted for some physiological illustration or investigation, his man Charles could always procure them, and he had at one time as many as thirty dogs, besides other animals, shut up in the hayloft. Half-a-crown a piece was paid by Charles on receipt of the dogs, however obtained, and no doubt dog-stealing was one source. The menagerie at the Tower was to Mr. Cooper, as it had been to John Hunter, a considerable resource for specimens for dissection. In 1801 an enormous elephant came under his knife, and being too unwieldy to be got into the dissecting-room, it had to be cut up in the courtyard, where, assisted by several students, Mr. Cooper gave himself no rest till all the interesting parts were preserved and deposited in St. Thomas’s Museum. Bird-stuffers, fishmongers, and poultry merchants were also among the sources of supply for his unwearying knife.
To Astley Cooper, as to most men who rise to eminence, remunerative practice came but slowly. “My receipt,” says he, “for the first year was £5, 5s; the second, £26; the third, £54; the fourth, £96; the fifth, £100; the sixth, £200; the seventh, £400; the eighth, £610; the ninth (the year in which he was appointed surgeon to the hospital), £1100.” This was in 1800, when his uncle, William Cooper, resigned the surgeoncy. It might have been supposed that the uncle would favour his nephew’s succession in every way possible; but he rather supported Mr. Morris, the strongest competitor. For the rising star made the elder jealous of his brilliancy, and moreover always regarded Cline, at St. Thomas’s, as his uncle’s superior. Thus Astley Cooper’s success was by no means certain, as his political associations with Horne Tooke and Thelwall were strenuously alleged against him. But Astley, ever preferring success to politics, resolved on giving up the latter and on being neutral for the future, at any rate as to all open proceedings. This resolve secured his appointment by Mr. Harrison, the well-known treasurer of Guy’s, who with Sir Astley shares the highest credit in the establishment of its medical school. He now absented himself from Mr. Cline’s political parties, and always advised young surgeons not to attach themselves to particular parties, as their duties must extend to persons of all views. He also, to leave no stone unturned, personally canvassed each of the seventy-two governors.
In 1800 Astley made his first communication to the Royal Society, on the effects of destruction of the tympanic membrane of the ear. He had found that considerable openings might be made in the membrane without impairing the hearing power. He consequently applied this operation to certain kinds of deafness resulting from disease or obstruction in the Eustachian tube, and in 1801 sent in another paper detailing the results of twenty cases. Although his success in restoring lost hearing was much less than he had anticipated, the operation has since been frequently performed, and the Royal Society in 1802 awarded him the Copley Medal for these papers. In the same year he was elected F.R.S.
Astley Cooper’s activities were at this time strongly directed towards the improvement of his profession by intercourse and discussion at societies, of several of which he was the life and soul. The Physical Society at Guy’s Hospital afforded his earliest opportunity of this kind, and long retained his active interest. During his short stay at Edinburgh his predominance was so evident that he was chosen president of a society to protect students’ rights against usurpations by the professors. Here also he joined a Speculative Society, and read a paper in favour of the Berkeleian theory of matter. One of the debates which he opened was on the subject “Is man a free agent?” He would have been a president of the Royal Medical Society at Edinburgh had he returned for a second winter, so much did he distinguish himself in debate. At a later period the strength of his association with Edinburgh was attested by his forming the Edinburgh Club in London for former Edinburgh medical students. The most important society, however, with the foundation of which he was connected, was the Royal Medical Chirurgical Society, which originated in a secession from the Medical Society of London. Dr. Yelloly, who was intimately connected with the new foundation, says of Mr. Cooper at this time: “I never saw any one more open-hearted as a companion, more unreserved in his remarks, with always a large store of information at his command, and who was at the same time more kindly disposed, and abounding in all sorts of material for the gratification of those with whom he associated. He was not a reading man; but he contrived to get the most valuable information of every description, whether professional or general, and always to use it in the best, the most attractive, and the readiest way.” The treasurer of the society was Astley Cooper, and he rendered essential service. The earliest volume of its Transactions, published in 1809, contained a paper recording his first operation for the relief of aneurism of the carotid artery by tying it below the aneurism—a method now established. But he had previously published (part 1 in 1804, part 2 in 1807) a work which largely contributed to his reputation, namely, on Hernia or Rupture. A second edition was published in 1827. The anatomical structures concerned were excellently expounded and illustrated, and the experience gained in frequently and successfully operating in cases of this disease gave Mr. Cooper a position of the highest authority. As so often happens to medical men, his attention was especially called to this disease from the fact that he had been subject to it from early life. The anatomical study he undertook in order to perfect his knowledge of this matter was immense. “I have related no case,” he says, “and given no remark, for the truth of which I cannot vouch.” When his pupils showed him some interesting appearance in a dissection, he would say; “That is the way, sir, to learn your profession. Look for yourself; never mind what other people may say, no opinion or theories can interfere with information derived from dissection.” The expense of the illustrations to this work was so great that Mr. Cooper was loser of a thousand pounds by it when every copy had been sold.
In 1806 Mr. Cooper left St. Mary Axe to occupy the house in New Broad Street which for nine years was crowded by his patients, during the most remunerative years of his life. In those years he rose at six, dissected privately till eight, and from half-past eight saw large numbers of gratuitous patients. At breakfast he ate only two well-buttered hot rolls, drank his tea, cool, at a draught, read his paper a few minutes, and then was off to his consulting-room, turning round with a sweet benign smile as he left the room. Patients crowded his rooms and besieged “Charles,” using manifold devices to get the earliest interview possible. At one o’clock he would scarcely see another patient, even if the house was full; but if detained half an hour later, would fly into a rage, abuse Charles, and jump into his carriage, leaving Charles to appease the disappointed patients. Sometimes the people in the hall and ante-room were so importunate that Mr. Cooper was driven to escape through his stables and into a passage by Bishopsgate Church. At Guy’s he was awaited by a crowd of pupils on the steps, and at once went into the wards, addressing the patients with such tenderness of voice and expression that he at once gained their confidence. His few pertinent questions and quick diagnosis were of themselves remarkable, no less than the judicious calm manner in which he enforced the necessity for operations when required. At two the pupils would suddenly leave the ward, run across the street to the old St. Thomas’s Hospital, and seat themselves in the anatomical theatre. After the lecture, which was often so crowded that men stood in the gangways and passages near to gain such portions of his lecture as they might fortunately pick up, he went round the dissecting-room, and afterwards left the hospital to visit patients, or to operate privately, returning home at half-past six or seven. Every spare minute in his carriage was occupied with dictating to his assistants notes or remarks on cases or other subjects on which he was engaged. At dinner he ate rapidly and not very elegantly, talking and joking; after dinner he slept for ten minutes at will, and then started to his surgical lecture, if it were a lecture night. In the evening he was usually again on a round of visits till midnight.
Dr. Pettigrew, in his “Medical Portrait Gallery,” thus vividly describes the overpowering influence Sir Astley had upon his pupils: “I can never forget the enthusiasm with which he entered upon the performance of any duty calculated to abridge human suffering. This enthusiasm, by the generosity of his character, his familiar manner, and the excellence of his temper, he imparted to all around him; and the extent of the obligations of the present and of after ages to Sir Astley Cooper, in thus forming able and spirited surgeons, can never be accurately estimated. He was the idol of the Borough School. The pupils followed him in troops; and, like to Linnæus, who has been described as proceeding upon his botanical excursions accompanied by hundreds of students, so may Sir Astley be depicted traversing the wards of the hospital with an equal number of pupils, listening with almost breathless anxiety to catch the observations which fell from his lips. But on the days of operation this feeling was wound up to the highest pitch. The sight was altogether deeply interesting; the large theatre of Guy’s crowded to the ceiling—the profound silence obtained upon his entry—that person so manly and so truly imposing—and the awful feeling connected with the occasion—can never be forgotten by any of his pupils. The elegance of his operation, without the slightest affectation, all ease, all kindness to the patients, and equally solicitous that nothing should be hidden from the observation of the pupils; rapid in execution, masterly in manner; no hurry, no disorder, the most trifling minutiæ attended to, the dressings generally applied by his own hand. The light and elegant manner in which Sir Astley employed his various instruments always astonished me, and I could not refrain from making some remarks upon it to my late master, Mr. Chandler, one of the surgeons to St. Thomas’s Hospital. I observed to him, that Sir Astley’s operations appeared like the graceful efforts of an artist in making a drawing. Mr. C. replied, ‘Sir, it is of no consequence what instrument Mr. Cooper uses, they are all alike to him; and I verily believe he could operate as easily with an oyster-knife as the best bit of cutlery in Laundy’s shop.’ There was great truth in this observation. Sir Astley was, at that time, decidedly one of the first operators of the day, and this must be taken in its widest sense, for it is intended to include the planning of the operation, the precision and dexterity in the mode of its performance, and the readiness with which all difficulties were met and overcome.”
Mr. Cooper, notwithstanding his persevering industry in dissection, would not have found time to acquire all the knowledge he did, but for employing several assistants either to dissect the specimens he obtained from operations or from post mortem examinations, or as artists and modellers, amanuenses, &c. He was very peremptory in his orders to his assistants to obtain for him any specimen he required, and would not listen to suggestions of difficulties. “So and so must be done,” he said, and his tone did not admit of the possibility of failure. Thus he accumulated the large collection of morbid specimens which he contributed to St. Thomas’s Hospital, at a time when such collections were poohpoohed, and so little regarded, that he could readily obtain any specimen he desired which was at the disposal of his colleagues. With regard to his proceedings in these matters the utmost secrecy was observed, entrance to his private dissecting-rooms being jealously restricted to himself and his paid assistants. When it was difficult to obtain leave to make a post mortem examination in private practice, he would spend a long time in arguing most strenuously upon the matter with the relatives, pointing out the reasons which rendered it desirable in the interests of science. His only child was examined by his express wish by a friend; and he left strict injunctions and directions for the post mortem on his own body. In very few cases was his determination ever frustrated.