Milestones of Science Books

COWPER, William.

Myotomia Reformata: Or an Anatomical Treatise on the Muscles of the Human Body. Illustrated with Figures After the Life... To Which is Prefix'd an Introduction Concerning Muscular Motion.

London: Robert Knaplock, William and John Innys, and Jacob Tonson, 1724.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002224

Large folio (460 x 322 mm). [12], lxxvi [1], 194 pp. Signatures: [*A]2 *B-*C² a-t² v1 B-Ddd². Engraved frontispiece, title printed in red and black, double-page engraved table of the Syllabus musculorum bound after v1, and 67 engraved plates after Rubens and Raphael numbered 1-66 (with plate 13 in two states), engraved text illustrations, diagrams, head- and tail-pieces and initials. Blank leaf v2 removed but final blank 3D2 present. Internally only very little browned, scattered light spotting. Contemporary calf (hinges repaired, boards, spine and extremities worn, corners heavily scuffed, lettering piece partly gone). A fine copy with ample margins. ----

Norman 530; Choulant-Frank, p.253; Garrison-Morton 392.1; Wellcome II, p.401; Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 415-17; Russell 210; Heirs of Hippocrates 723. The first folio edition, remarkable not only for the quality of the large plates but for "the ingenious historiated initials wittily decorated with myotomical motifs" (Norman). The first edition of Cowper's treatise on the muscular system of the human body was published in 1694 as a modest octavo with 10 plates. Cowper worked until his death on this greatly expanded edition, which was published 13 years later under the supervision and at the expense of the physician Richard Mead (1673-1754). With its 66 plates, some after Rubens and Raphael, its witty engraved initials and dramatic head- and tail-piece illustrations, this first folio edition ratlks among the most artistically inventive anatomical atlases of the 17th and 18th centuries.

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