Cowper began his apprenticeship to a surgeon in London in 1682, and was admitted as a barber-surgeon in 1691. The publishers of Bidloo's Anatomia gave three hundred sets of the plates to Cowper, who re-issued them in 1698 with a new English text, under his own name and with practically no acknowledgement to Bidloo. He even pasted his own title and name over Bidloo's original title page. To Bidloo's original 105 plates, Cowper added nine new plates in an appendix on the external muscles. In the Preface to The anatomy of humane bodies, Cowper does state that the plates were executed by Lairesse, and were published by Bidloo, but it was his contention that Bidloo had no legitimate claim to the plates, and that Bidloo's text had not been used by Cowper. Later, in the preface to the second edition of his Myotomia, Cowper wrote that Bidloo's only contribution to the work was the preparation of the specimens. Nevertheless, Bidloo regarded Cowper's conduct as a flagrant act of plagiarism, but in the absence of an international copyright agreement, was powerless to act, other than to issue a scathing pamphlet against Cowper, which he addressed to the Royal Society. Cowper's Anatomy was very successful and was re-issued several times. A second English and a Latin edition were issued in Leiden in 1737. The English edition was revised by Albinus.
