Folio (514 x 350 mm). Title-page printed in red and black with engraved vignette; engraved title-page; 118 engraved plates [3 folding]. (Marginal wormhole to first few leaves not touching text or plates, a few short tears occasionally crossing into image, small repairs to a few folding plates, some light offsetting.) Contemporary mottled calf (rebacked preserving original spine, some light wear). 

Second edition in Latin. The large plates, originally designed for Bidloo's Anatomia in 1685, were drawn by Gerard de Lairesse, a painter who rivaled Rembrandt in his time. Bidloo's text was widely criticized, however, and after English surgeon William Cowper obtained the plates to Bidloo's work, he arranged to supply an entirely new text to accompany a reissue. Cowper first issued his work in English in 1698, and the first edition in Latin was published in 1739. "The most elaborate and beautiful of all 17th century English treatises on anatomy and also one of the most extraordinary plagiarism in the history of medicine" (Garrison-Morton 385.1, describing the 1698 edition). Choulant-Frank, pp.252-3; see Norman 529.