Cooper, Hernia, 1827, inscribed by Bransby Cooper
The Anatomy and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Hernia. In Two Parts. By Sir Astley Cooper, Bart., F.R.S. Surgeon to the King, and Consulting Surgeon to Guy's Hospital. Second Edition. By C. Aston Key, Senior Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, and Lecturer of Surgery. London: Published by Messrs. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster Row. 1827.
Ffep, blank, title, (12), 83, I, (2), II –III, (2), IV – V, (2), VI – VII. (2), VIII – IX, (2), X – XI, (2), XII – XIII, (1), Title to part II, (1), 79, I, (2), II, (2), III, (2), VI – VII, (2), VIII- IX, (2), X – XI, (2), XII – XIII, (2), XIV – XV, (2), XVI – XVII, (1), blank, rfep.
Three in-text figures (occurring on pages 56, 70, and 71). Plate II of Part I in color. Plates II and III of Part II are each in two parts, and each bound in reverse order. The textual explanations of these plates counts them as separately numbered plates (II, III, IV, and V), thus there are no missing plates between II and VI noted above. Plate IX in Part II is unnumbered and the figures it contains are numbered continuously from those of Plate VIII, however the textual explanation refers to it as Plate IX.
Complete.
Folio. Early (likely original) marbled paper over boards with later half brown leather binding. Presentation label on front board. Inscription from Bransby Cooper to John Henry Roberts on title page, dated 1832. One additional point of marginalia, probably Bransby Cooper’s hand. Some creasing to end papers and blanks, with slightly tattered edges. Damp stain and foxing variable throughout but not offensive. Margins well-retained. Exterior variably scuffed, rubbed, and chipped.
Bransby Cooper was Astley Cooper's nephew and biographer.
We locate a John Henry Roberts (1814 - 1900), who studied at Guy's Hospital. He was FRCS, and a Fellow and Membe rof the Medical, Pathological, and Royal Microscopical Societies.
Thornton, pg 156 states this work was first issued in two parts 1804-1807 and it was “his first and greatest work.”
G-M 3581 lists the first edition as 1807: “Cooper’s first book, luxuriously produced, in which he described for the first time the transversalis fascia, with full appreciation of its importance in hernia, as well as the superior pubic ligament with [sic: which] bears his name.” He also studied femoral and diaphragmatic hernias. The second edition includes his description of the femoral hernia which bears his name.
“...the treatise on Hernia...brought him international fame as a surgeon. … The basic daily rote of the surgery of hernia still remains as taught by him. Before his time the whole subject was confused, ill-understood and beset by quackery.” (Brock pf 73).
Sir Astley Paston Cooper, 1768 – 1841, was surgeon to Guy’s Hospital. He collaborated with Benjamin Travers (1783 – 1858) on his Surgical Essays. (Thornton pg 156).as a member of the Royal medical Society of Edinburgh (founded in 1737 as an association of students) (Thornton pg 201).
“Astley Cooper’s duties as lecturer in anatomy involved him in the difficult problem of the supply of human subjects for the students. … as a student he almost certainly took part in ‘resurrections’ himself. … It is well known that Astley Cooper was notorious in his active associations with the resurrection men and in the support he gave them. The occasions were few on which he was not paying maintenance to the families of some of them while the men were in prison for their body-snatching.” (Brock, pg 22).
Additionally, Cooper performed a successful operation, including ligation, on carotid artery aneurism (G-M 2955). In 1817 he ligated the abdominal aorta (G-M 2941). His first book was on inguinal hernia and he well-described the transversalis fascia and its importance in the surgical anatomy of hernia (G-M 3581).
Cooper requested that upon his death he be autopsied and the results published. The post-mortem examination took place at Guy’s Hospital by John Hilton (with others in attendance) and the results were published in the Guy’s Hospital Reports, 1841, 6, 229. (Brock, pg 164)
