Samuel Cooper FRS (September 1780 – 2 December 1848) was an English surgeon and medical writer. He published a ''Surgical Dictionary'' which went through many editions.

Biography

Cooper was born in September 1780. His father, who had made a fortune in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

, died when his three sons were still young. The eldest, George, became a judge of the supreme court in Madras, and was knighted. The second, Samuel, was educated by Dr.

Charles Burney Charles Burney (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicist a ...

at Greenwich, and in 1800 entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1803 he became a Member of the

Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations a ...

, and settled in Golden Square. In 1806 he gained the Jacksonian prize at the College of Surgeons for the best essay on ''Diseases of the Joints''. He then began writing about surgery, for which he achieved a reputation, with his books going to several editions. His book (1840) "First Lines of Theory and Practice of Surgery" was the first formal acknowledgement of advanced melanoma as untreatable. He stated that the only chance for a cure depends upon the early removal of the disease (i.e., early excision of the malignant mole.) More than one and a half centuries later, this situation remains largely unchanged. (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman) After his wife's death, Cooper in 1813 entered the army as surgeon, and served at the

battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

. Retiring on the conclusion of peace, he devoted his attention to editing the successive editions of his two principal works, and also gained a considerable surgical practice. In 1827 he became a member of the council of the College of Surgeons, and delivered the

Hunterian oration The Hunterian Oration is a lecture of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The oration was founded in 1813 by the executors of the will of pioneering surgeon John Hunter, his nephew Dr Matthew Baillie and his brother-in-law Sir Everard Home ...

in 1834. From 1831 to 1848 he was surgeon to University College Hospital and professor of surgery in the college. In 1845 he was elected president of the College of Surgeons, and in 1846

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

. Cooper died of

gout Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of a red, tender, hot and swollen joint, caused by deposition of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals. Pain typically comes on rapidly, reaching maximal intensit ...

on 2 December 1848.

Works

*''Cataract'', 1805 *''First lines of Surgery'', 1807 *''Surgical Dictionary'', 1809 This was translated into French, German, and Italian, and several times republished in America. *Editor of the third and fourth editions of Dr Mason Good's ''Study of Medicine'', 1822. For ''

Rees's Cyclopædia Rees's ''Cyclopædia'', in full ''The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature'' was an important 19th-century British encyclopaedia edited by Rev. Abraham Rees (1743–1825), a Presbyterian minister and scholar w ...

'' he contributed articles on surgery, but the topics are not known.

Family

In 1810 Cooper married a Miss Cranstoun, but she died in the following year, leaving a daughter, afterwards married to Thomas Morton, surgeon to

University College Hospital University College Hospital (UCH) is a teaching hospital in the Fitzrovia area of the London Borough of Camden, England. The hospital, which was founded as the North London Hospital in 1834, is closely associated with University College London ...

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Samuel British surgeons 1780 births 1848 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society