The largest in format, and most elaborate and beautiful of all 17th century English treatises on anatomy, and also one of the most extraordinary plagiarisms in the entire history of medicine. Cowper purchased sets of the van Gunst copperplates used to illustrate Bidloo’s book from Bidloo's publisher apparently without Bidloo's permission, and issued them under his own name with an improved text in English, and a new illustrated appendix. For the frontispiece Cowper had a small printed flap with his own name pasted over Bidloo’s own engraved title and name. All of this was apparently done without Bidloo's permission, so even though Cowper credited Bidloo with the plates, Bidloo accused Cowper of plagiarism and published the record of the case in the following polemic: Gulielmus Cowper, criminis literarii citatus, coram tribunali nobiliss., ampliss: Societatis Britanno-Regiae, Leiden, 1700.