Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Samuel (1780-1848)
COOPER, SAMUEL (1780–1848), surgical writer, was born in September 1780. His father, who had made a fortune in the West Indies, 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. Burney at Greenwich, and in 1800 entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where he showed great promise. In 1803 he became M.R.C.S., 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.’ In 1807 he published his ‘First Lines of Surgery,’ which went through seven editions. In 1809 the first edition of his great ‘Surgical Dictionary’ appeared, and its popularity was instant and great. During Cooper's lifetime seven large and carefully revised editions appeared. 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. After his wife's death Cooper (in 1813) entered the army as surgeon, and served on the field of Waterloo. Retiring on the conclusion of peace, he devoted his chief 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 from 1831 to 1848 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. He died of gout on 2 Dec. 1848.
Besides his principal works Cooper wrote a book on ‘Cataract,’ 1805, and edited the third and fourth editions of Dr. Mason Good's ‘Study of Medicine.’ He delivered the Hunterian oration in 1834. The ‘Dictionary’ was translated into French, German, and Italian, and several times republished in America.
[Lancet, 1848, ii. 646; Gent. Mag. 1849, i. (March), 320; biographical notice by G. L. Cooper, prefixed to vol. ii. of the 8th edition of the Dictionary of Practical Surgery, 1872; Clarke's Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession, 1874, pp. 323–6; for discussions connected with Cooper's resignation of the University College chair, see Lancet 1848, multis locis.]