Henry Cohen, 1st Baron Cohen of Birkenhead

Henry Cohen, 1st Baron Cohen of Birkenhead (21 February 1900 – 7 August 1977) was a British physician, doctor and lecturer. He was famous for his Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians in 1970, on the motion of blood in the veins. Cohen was elected to the chair of medicine at the University of Liverpool in 1934. When the Central Health Services Council was formed in 1949, he became its vice-chairman, and chairman in 1957. Knighted in 1949, he was President of the British Medical Association from 1951. After a coronary thrombosis in the following year, Cohen decided to devote his life to the greater work of teaching. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Cohen of Birkenhead, of Birkenhead in the County Palatine of Chester, on 16 June 1956 and was elected President of the General Medical Council in 1961. In 1964, he became President of the Royal Society of Medicine, receiving the society's gold medal in 1971. He also opened the assembly hall of the King David School, Liverpool.

Background Henry Cohen was born in Birkenhead on 21 February 1900. One of his teachers at the church school described him as showing 'signs of genius when most boys are only beginning to show signs of intelligence'. He attended the Birkenhead Institute on a scholarship, and captained its cricket and rugby teams.

Cohen won a scholarship to the University of Oxford, but for reasons of expense attended the University of Liverpool. He graduated MB ChB in 1922 with first class honours and distinction in all his courses. He studied at the University of London and University of Paris, obtaining his MD with special merit in 1924. In 1924 he became assistant physician at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, where he was to remain on the staff for 41 years.

Honours and Distinctions Cohen was appointed to the chair of medicine at Liverpool in 1934, a part-time position, enabling him to follow up the results of his teaching by keeping in contact with local colleagues and practitioners. Between 1947 and 1971 he served as a member of the board of governors of the Liverpool teaching hospitals and of the regional hospital board.

Lord Cohen of Birkenhead died on 7 August 1977, aged 77, after a short illness, at Bath, Somerset when the peerage became extinct. Cohen has a lecture theatre named after him in the Duncan Building belonging to the University of Liverpool.

Cohen was known for his quote "The feasibility of an operation is not the best indication for its performance".