I20 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



'diseases of the spinal marrow,' 'functions of the spinal chord,' 

 instead of 'myelonal[myelic] '^diseases, 'myelonal' functions; or 

 if the pathologist speaks of ' spinal disease,' meaning disease 

 of the spinal marrow, he is liable to be misunderstood as refer- 

 ring to the disease of the spinal or vertebral column. But were 

 the anatomist to speak of the canal in the spinal marrow of 

 fishes as the ' myelonal canal,' he would at once distinguish it 

 from the canal of the spinal column. The generally accepted 

 term 'chorda' or 'chorda dorsalis,' for the embryonic gelati- 

 nous basis of the spine, adds another source of confusion likely 

 to arise from the use of the term ' spinal chord ' applied to the 

 myelon, or albuminous contents of the spinal canal." ^ 



In 1873 ('73, 306) Owen's examples of ectoghiteiis, ineso- 

 gluteiis, and etitoglutcns led me to propose the locative mono- 

 nyms ectopectoTalis and eiitopectoralis for the two frequently 

 named muscles whose relative proportions in most mammals 

 are so misrepresented by the adjectives i?mjor ■SiXid minor. 



II. 1880-83. While preparing a paper on the brain of the 

 cat, and (with S. H. Gage) a volume of directions for labo-^ 

 ratory work, I adopted from Barclay the unambiguous toponyms 

 dorsal, dorsad, etc. ; replaced his mesion by wcson, the direct 

 paronym of /xeaov; added ecta/, ental, etc.; and simplified some 

 organonyms, especially muscular and neural, in the following 

 ways: {a) Dropping unessential adjectives {opticus from tJiala- 

 viiis and chiasina); eponymic (§ 33) qualifiers {Varolii, Reilii, 

 Rolando); and generic nouns {corpus, mater, and membrand) 

 from adjectives that were sufificiently distinctive and could be 

 used as substantives {callosum, dura, mucosa); {b) substituting 

 prepositions for adjectives {e.g., postcommissiira for commissiira 

 posterior) ; {c) replacing certain polyonyms by mononyms more 

 or less nearly akin thereto {e.g., lamina tcrminalis by terma); 



1 On several previous occasions I have shown that analogy with Tvords like 

 angel and angelic (from ct77e\os) calls for myel and myelic as the English nomina- 

 tive and adjective of myelon; myelonal is clumsy, and analogy would involve the 

 replacement of encephalic by encephalonal. 



2 The foregoing first appeared half a century ago ; the mononym myelon was 

 employed consistently by Owen, and on at least one occasion by his rival Huxley. 

 These facts should secure for it the consideration due to high authority and 

 moderate antiquity, and forestall any hasty proposition to employ it in a different 

 sense. 



