Cooper, Astley Paston (1768–1841)

English surgeon. He was a pioneer in the surgery of the blood vessels, experimental surgery, and surgery of the ear. He was first to ligate the abdominal aorta, in 1817. In 1820 he removed a small tumour from the head of George IV. His chief work is Anatomy and Surgical Treatment of Hernia (1804–07).

Cooper was born at Brooke, near Norwich, and devoted himself to the study of anatomy early on, becoming surgeon to Guy's Hospital, London, in 1800. Besides teaching at Guy's and St Thomas's, he is said to have dissected on every day of his working life. He became president of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1827 and vice-president of the Royal Society in 1830. He was rewarded for his operation on the king with a baronetcy in 1820.

His other publications include Dislocations and Fractures (1822), Diseases of the Breast (1829), and Anatomy of the Thymus Gland (1832).