John Cooper Forster

John Cooper Forster (1823 to 1886) was a British surgeon. He was born in Lambeth, London, where his father and grandfather had been local medical practitioners, and entered Guy's Hospital in 1841. He became a member of the College of Surgeons in 1844 and a fellow in 1849, was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in 1850, assistant surgeon in 1855 and surgeon in 1870, and served as president of the College in 1884. He was regarded as a prompt and sometimes bold operator, and in 1858 he performed practically the first gastrostomy in England, for cancer of the oesophagus. His best known papers discussed acupressure, syphilis, hydrophobia, intestinal obstruction, modified obturator hernia, torsion and colloid cancer of the large intestine, and in 1860 he published a book on Surgical Diseases of Children, drawn from his work at the hospital for children and women in Waterloo Road. He died suddenly in London in 1886.