THE LATE SIR ASTLKY COOPER. 
165 
every well-disposed and diligent student. At the imminent hazard 
and the sacrifice of his health he pursued his course, and often was 
compelled to leave the dissecting table for a while from a feeling of 
sickness which was soon followed by the vomiting of a consider- 
able quantity of blood. He attributed this to his long stooping 
over his subject, when he was engaged in demonstrating or dissec- 
tion. This was a dangerous symptom, but it terrified not him, or 
caused him to relax from the labours of his task. 
His instructions at that period were, like his works in after-life, 
remarkable for their clearness and simplicity, and the practical 
spirit which uniformly pervaded them. If there was a fault in his 
manner of thinking and teaching, it was that his information and 
his tuition were founded a little too much on his own observation 
and research. At different periods of his life he had the gratifica- 
tion to effect many useful discoveries, not the least important 
among which were those of the fascia transversalis, and the internal 
abdominal ring; but he did not always sufficiently value the 
labours and discoveries of his contemporaries : — not that there was 
ever an assumption of superior knowledge or skill, or the slightest 
attempt to deprive an associate of the least portion of the praise 
which was his due, but, relying so much and so justly on the close- 
ness and the fidelity of his own examinations, he was not fully 
aware of the labours and researches of others. 
Having thus established his reputation at St. Thomas’s, he 
visited the French medical school, and became the intimate friend of 
Dupuytren. He there received the cross of the legion of honour, 
and was elected an honorary member of the National Institute of 
France. On his return to England he commenced the practice of 
his profession, first in Jefferey’s-square, St. Mary Axe, and after- 
wards in New Broad-street ; and, with the consent of the surgeons 
of Guy’s and St. Thomas’s he commenced a course of lectures on 
the principles and practice of surgery — the first regular course on 
these subjects that was delivered in London, for, anterior to this 
time, instructions on surgery were only given as a collateral branch 
of the anatomical course. This was the real foundation of his fame 
and his fortune. At first his class consisted but of 50 pupils, 
but it speedily increased to more than 400. 
The style in which his lectures were delivered was exceedingly 
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