Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 723.9

WILLIAM COWPER (1666-1709) The anatomy of humane bodies : with figures drawn after the life by some of the best masters in Europe, and curiously engraven in one hundred and fourteen copper plates, illustrated with large explications, containing many new anatomical discoveries, and chirurgical observations : to which is added an introduction explaining the animal oeconomy, with a copious index. Printed at the Theater, for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford… London. 1698 1st (English) edition. [142] p., 105, 9 leaves of plates (some folded) : ill, port. 61 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 724 722

William Cowper FRS (c. 1666 – 8 March 1709) was an English surgeon and anatomist, famous for his early description of what is now known as the Cowper's gland. Cowper was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, and he was apprenticed to a London surgeon, William Bignall, in March 1682. He was admitted to the Company of Barber-Surgeons in 1691 and began practicing in London the same year. In 1694, he published his noted work, Myotomia Reformata, or a New Administration of the Muscles, and he was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1696. In 1698, he published The Anatomy of the Humane Bodies, which gained him great fame and notoriety, and over the next eleven years he published a number of tracts on topics ranging from surgery and pathology to physiology and anatomy. He died on 8 March 1709. 105 of Cowper’s anatomical plates used in this book were drawn by Gérard de Lairesse (1640–1711) and engraved by Abraham Blooteling (1640–1690) for Govard Bidloo’s Anatomia Humani Corporis. Cowper proceeded to write a new English text to accompany the plates, many of them showing a great deal of original research and fresh new insights. He also commissioned nine new plates drawn by Henry Cooke (1642–1700) and engraved by Michiel van der Gucht (1660–1725), among which were front and back views of the entire musculature. The book was then published under Cowper's name with no mention of Bidloo or Lairesse, with the original engraved, allegorical title page amended with an irregular piece of paper lettered: "The anatomy of the humane bodies ...," which fits over the Dutch title. Whatever the truth may be [regarding the charge of plagiarism], it is undeniable that Cowper was a great anatomist and surgeon in his own right – and that he clearly did not give Govard Bidloo proper credit for his involvement in this work.

See Related Record(s): 667 722 723 724 725 726 727

Cited references: Garrison & Morton 385.1; Wellcome II p.401; Cushing C452; NLM 17th c. #2787; Choulant p. 252

John Martin M.D. Endowment