Heading:
Author: Cowper, Guilielmo
Title: Anatomia Corporum Humanorum
Place Published: Leiden
Publisher:Joannem Arnoldum Langerak
Date Published: 1739
Description:

[70] leaves of letterpress including the divisional title to the Appendix and 2 leaves of index. Additional engraved title page; 114 copperplate engravings including 3 folding. (Folio) 54x38 cm (21¼x15"), early red vellum-backed boards. First Edition in Latin.

First edition with Latin text of Cowper's Anatomy of Humane Bodies. "With this work, first published in English in 1698, Cowper provided one of the better-known stories of theft in medical history. Of the 114 plates in this collection, only nine were original with Cowper. All of the others were the work of Bidloo and were published in his Anatomia humani corporis in 1685. Cowper obtained three hundred sets of Bidloo's plates, pasted his own name over that of Bidloo on the title page, made a few corrections in ink, added nine plates of his own, translated the text into English, and published the whole under his own name. Bidloo, naturally incensed over this plagiarism, arraigned Cowper before the Royal Society, and the two engaged in an exchange of polemical writings." (Heirs of Hippocrates). Choulant-Frank, pp. 252-253; Russell 213; Waller 2192 (1737 English ed.); Wellcome II, p. 401; Heirs of Hippocrates 725.

A few large chips to spine, boards worn; short stub tears to folding plates, small worm tunnel from approximately plate 81 to the rear mostly in the lower margin but into plate impression in a few instances; otherwise very good or better.