Sir Astley Cooper, a respected surgeon, was one of the four "great men" of the famous Guy's Hospital in London. Cooper, who was born on this date in 1768, was an enormously popular doctor. In 1806, he was earning a huge salary that exceeded even the prime minister's income. After he removed a sebaceous cyst from King George IV's head, the king made him a baron. Cooper later tried to pass his lecturer post at St. Thomas's Hospital to his nephew, but the governors of the hospital named someone else in his place. Cooper retaliated by creating the medical school at Guy's Hospital and even supplied the teaching materials and specimens. "Cooper's fascia" and "Cooper's hernia" are named in his honor.

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