The third son of John Cock, junr, an underwriter at Lloyd's, by his marriage with Maria, daughter of Baron Hesse, of Potsdam in Prussia, was born at Tottenham, Middlesex, on January 26th, 1805. The family of Cock was connected with that of Henry Cline, Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, and it was through Cline's introduction that Sir Astley Cooper met his wife at Tottenham. Lady Cooper was the daughter of John Cock, senr, a wealthy merchant, and was consequently aunt to Edward Cock. He was educated at the school of Dr Schwabe, a German, at Stamford, where, as well as from his mother, he learnt sufficient French and German to undertake translations for English medical journals. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Astley Cooper, in 1821, and began his studies at St Thomas's Hospital. When the separation of medical teaching at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals took place in 1825, in consequence of the appointment of J Flint South (qv) as Lecturer on Anatomy at St Thomas's Cock followed his uncle to Guy's, where he was appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy before he had finished his apprenticeship, and consequently before he had been admitted MRCS. He worked assiduously in the dissecting-room until 1838, when he was elected Assistant Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, becoming full Surgeon in 1849 and retiring as Consulting Surgeon in 1871. On the occasion of his retirement the past and present students presented him with a silver epergne, and some years later his former colleagues defrayed the cost of a portrait. When the Pupils' Physical Society was established at Guy's in 1836, Cock was elected the first Honorary President, and he continued to preside at the first and last meeting of each session for a period of forty years. He became President of the Hunterian Society in 1849. He was for many years Consulting Surgeon to the London and Brighton Railway Company, to the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, to the Philanthropic Society, to the Royal Medical Benevolent Society at Epsom, and to the Kingston Cottage Hospital. He was also Surgeon to the 12th Surrey Rifle Volunteers, and did much to encourage accurate shooting by liberal donations to the prize fund. Cock lived for the greater part of his life in St Thomas's Street and in Dean Street, Southwark, which are in the immediate neighbourhood of Guy's Hospital; but in spite of his remoteness from a fashionable centre he acquired a substantial surgical practice. He suffered severely from a poisoned hand in 1858, from which he made a very prolonged convalescence at Canbury House, Kingston, under the care of W Sudlow Roots (qv). He went to live in one of Roots's houses in that borough in 1860, and died there on April 1st, 1892. He had remained a bachelor until the age of 62, when he married Marianna, a daughter of Roger S Nunn, MRCS, of Colchester. There were no children, but the marriage was a happy one. His wife died in 1886, and for the rest of his life he was looked after by a daughter of Roots, his old friend and fellow-student. Cock was elected to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1856, was re-elected in 1862, and retired in 1871. He was a member of the Court of Examiners from 1867-1872, Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1868, Vice-President 1867-1869, and was elected President in July, 1869. The first meeting of Fellows and Members was held at the College on March 24th, 1870, when owing to his tact and conciliatory manner in the Chair, as President, the meeting passed off much more harmoniously than some of the subsequent ones. Cock was an excellent anatomist, and he published in 1839 *Practical Anatomy of the Nerves and Vessels supplying the Head, Neck and Chest*, which had a considerable sale and was known to the students as 'Cock's Head and Neck'. The book is noteworthy as it was the first anatomical treatise in which the parts were described as they are successively met with by the dissector. The plan was afterwards carried out more elaborately by G Viner Ellis (qv) in his *Demonstrations of Anatomy*. In 1836 Cock described in the *Guy's Hospital Reports* (i, 47, 62) two elaborate dissections, many years after ligature, of a large artery in its continuity, the one of the external iliac, the other of the subclavian. The dried and varnished specimens are still preserved in the Museum of Guy's Hospital. Cock also did some good work on the comparative anatomy of the internal ear to discover the pathological changes which lead to congenital deafness. In surgery his name is connected with the treatment of extreme cases of impermeable urethral stricture threatening extravasation of urine. He shares with Sir John Simon (qv) the merit of inventing the operation of perineal urethrotomy without a staff. The operation consisted in stabbing through the perineum with a lithotomy knife guided by the forefinger in the rectum touching the apex of the prostate. The description of Cock's operation was published in the *Guy's Hospital Reports* (1866, 3rd ser. xii, 267). It was also due to his teaching that gradual dilatation with flexible bougies replaced forcible dilatation with rigid instruments in treating permeable strictures. He was the first in this country to perform pharyngotomy with success, and thus removed a tooth-plate impacted in the gullet. He was, too, one of the first surgeons successfully to trephine for middle meningeal haemorrhage, his operation dating back to 1842. As a man Cock was certainly the best beloved of the Surgeons who have been attached to Guy's Hospital. In his youth he was always known as 'Old Cock', in old age as 'Teddy Cock'. Innumerable stories were fathered upon him, many exaggerating the slight stammer with which he always spoke. He was absolutely honest in thought and deed, full of spirits to the end, and as fond of a harmless practical joke as his uncle, Sir Astley Cooper. In appearance he is described as somewhat below the average height, wearing spectacles, and having a slight stoop which made him appear prematurely old. His grand head and face with a pleasant expression more than atoned for his somewhat diminutive frame. A delicate, pale complexion, a good but not excessive forehead, sloping gently to a pair of arched eyebrows, blue eyes, a firm well-chiselled aquiline nose, and a most attractive smile created an impression not easily forgotten. His white hair remained thick to quite old age, whilst his short beard was confined to his lips and chin. In dress he was peculiar and quite indifferent to all conventional ideas. In early life, like other surgeons, he visited his patients on horseback; in later life he drove a single brougham with a fast-trotting horse, which was well known because it bore for arms on the panels a cock rampant with the motto, "Whilst I live, I'll crow". He used to follow the hounds when he could find time, hunting from Kingston with Garth's, the Surrey Union, and the Surrey staghounds. Like other surgeons, he had an army of pensioners to whom it was his custom to give a fee rather than receive one when they came to visit him. In 1875 he was put on the Commission of the Peace and was unfailing in his attendance when on rota. It is said that when he had fined a man he would sometimes pay the fine himself and tell the culprit not to repeat his offence. In London, living as he did for the greater part of his long life close to the slums of Southwark, he became known to the thieves and rogues who frequented the out-patient room of the hospital, and it is to their credit that they never attempted to deceive or molest him. He was a man of cultivated taste and he possessed an excellent collection of pictures ; his literary style was good, and his clinical lectures were models of precision and distinguished for their practical aim. There is a portrait of Cock as a young man by T Senties; it was engraved by W T Davey. There is another portrait by G R Black painted in 1876. It hangs at the top of the Grand Staircase at Guy's Hospital; there is a lithograph of it. There is also a photograph in the Fellows' Album.