Cuthbert Leslie Cope (1903–1975) was an English physician and endocrinologist. He graduated in 1924 BA from the University of Oxford. He studied medicine at

University College Hospital Medical School UCL Medical School is the medical school of University College London (UCL) and is located in London, United Kingdom. The School provides a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate medical education programmes and also has a medical educati ...

. He qualified MRCS, LRCP in 1927 and MRCP in 1930. He graduated BM BCh in 1927 and DM in 1932. He held his residency appointments at University College Hospital. On his return to the UK he held appointments successively at

St Thomas' Hospital St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS teaching hospital in Central London, England. It is one of the institutions that compose the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. Administratively part of the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foun ...

, University College Hospital, and the

Radcliffe Infirmary The Radcliffe Infirmary was a hospital in central north Oxford, England, located at the southern end of Woodstock Road on the western side, backing onto Walton Street. History The initial proposals to build a hospital in Oxford were put forw ...

. Cope was elected FRCP in 1939. In 1940 he published his paper ''The Diagnostic Value of Pregnandiol Excretion in Pregnancy Disorders''. He became in 1942 a lieutenant-colonel in the RAMC; he served from 1944 to 1945 in France and Holland and then in the postwar-era in Norway. He was director of human problems research for the UK's National Coal Board from 1947 to 1949. He was then appointed to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School. By applying chromatography and isotopes he developed methods for measuring urine levels, blood levels, and production rates for cortisol and aldosterone. In 1954 Cope and J. García-Llauradó published evidence of excess secretion of aldosterone in a case of potassium-losing nephropathy, occurring in a 41-year-old patient with a renal tube anomaly associated with a chronic pyelonephritis. Cope, García-Llauradó, and M. D. Milne were among the first researchers to identify primary aldosteronism, also known as Conn's syndrome. In 1958 Cope and E. Black introduced a new method for measuring the production rate of cortisol. In their method, the patient first empties the bladder and drinks a small test dose of ¹⁴C-labelled cortisol. The patient's urine is then collected over the next 24 hours. From the urine sample, a measurement is made of the sample's total ¹⁴C content, and a measurement is also made of the specific activity of the sample's

tetrahydrocortisol Tetrahydrocortisol, or urocortisol, is a steroid and an inactive metabolite of cortisol. See also * Tetrahydrocortisone * Tetrahydrocorticosterone 3α,5α-Tetrahydrocorticosterone (3α,5α-THB), or simply tetrahydrocorticosterone (THB or THCC), ...

, a metabolite of cortisol. In 1959 Cope and Black published their paper ''The Reliability of Some Adrenal Function Tests''. In 1964 Cope was the President of the Section of Endocrinology at the annual meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1966 he gave the

Lumleian Lectures The Lumleian Lectures are a series of annual lectures started in 1582 by the Royal College of Physicians and currently run by the Lumleian Trust. The name commemorates John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley, who with Richard Caldwell of the College endowe ...

on ''The Adrenal Cortex in Internal Medicine''. He retired at age 65 but continued his laboratory work. In 1972 he was awarded the Royal College of Physicians' Moxon Medal.

Family

Zachary Cope Sir Vincent Zachary Cope MD MS FRCS (14 February 1881 – 28 December 1974) was an English physician, surgeon, author, historian and poet perhaps best known for authoring the book ''Cope's Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen'' from 1921 until ...

was his uncle. On 9 July 1937 in Totnes, Devon, Cuthbert Leslie Cope married Eileen Gertrude Putt. They had two sons, Jonathan Leslie (b. 1940) and David Robert (b. 1944). The older son became a member of the medical profession, and the younger son became an outstanding headmaster.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cope, Cuthbert Leslie 1903 births 1975 deaths 20th-century English medical doctors British endocrinologists Alumni of the University of Oxford Alumni of the UCL Medical School Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians Royal Army Medical Corps officers