Cooper vs Wakley first record of medical malpractice medical negligence in history first case of medical negligence surgical negligence during lithotomy historical aspect of medical negligence Thomas Wakley vs Baransby Cooper First medical negligence suit Thomas Wakley Founder of The Lancet

1. The First Recorded Medical
Malpractice Litigation
Dr. Arun Sharma
Medical Negligence Cases from History

2. 1929, England

3. 53-year-old strong and healthy
patient, Stephen Pollard
Had 5 children & a wife

4. On March 18, 1828 he reached Guy’s
Hospital, London for lithotomy

5. Bransby Cooper, nephew of a
famous anatomist Sir Astley
Cooper was the surgeon

6. Many people suffered from bladder stones during
the early modern period
Bladder stones were unimaginably painful for those
who suffered from them during this period
Many acted in desperation, going to great lengths
to rid themselves of the agony

7. One man reportedly drove a nail through his penis and then
used a blacksmith’s hammer to break the stone apart until the
pieces were small enough to pass through his urethra

8. There was still no anesthesia used in operations circa 1828

9. It is not a surprise that many sufferers
chose to undergo surgery

12. Astley Cooper
Sir Astley Paton Cooper was a British
surgeon and anatomist, who made
historical contributions to otology, vascular
surgery, the anatomy and pathology of the
mammary glands and testicles, and the
pathology and surgery of hernia

14. The increasing horror of the botched surgery was too much
for some of the 200 spectators as some of them began to
leave the hall, including some of the surgeons

15. Cooper ignored Mr. Pollard's cries and
instead responded to the growing crisis
with panic

16. But he retreated back to forceps and finally found
and triumphantly removed the small
stone to mild clapping

17. Leeches were applied to Pollard but he
died the next day later

18. The autopsy revealed that Pollard
did not have a deep perineum

19. Thomas Wakley (11
July 1795 – 16 May
1862): English
surgeon.

23. Henceforth, the newlywed law and medicine
would walk together awkwardly, seeing each
other as little as possible, since one is social
science and other applied

24. The law can only ever imperfectly second-
guess surgery or medicine in general. But that
gap has been shrinking since that day in the
Westminster Court of King's Bench in 1828