SOME NEURAL TERMS. 1 53 



the employment of certain prepositions in composition with the 

 force of adjectives, there would still remain ^ special objection 

 to post as indicating toward the tail rather than toward the 

 back. This objection is radical, and the conflict involved is 

 irrepressible (pp. 144-145). 



Postramus. — To this, as a mononymic substitute iox Ramus 

 posterior arboris vitae cerebelli, Professor His offers no specific 

 objections, but they may be inferred to be (a) that it is a post 

 compound (pp. 146-152); {b) that the German list does not 

 include any terms for the branch-like divisions of the cerebellar 

 "tree." If these branches no longer merit specification, 

 postrajHiis and praeramus will vanish quietly with the ancient 

 polyonyms from which they were condensed. 



Isthmus. — Professor His complains that this word is used 

 by me in the sense of Gyrus annectens. This latter term does 

 not occur in the German list, so I assume that Gyrus transi- 

 tivus is meant. No one of my terminologic propositions gives 

 me more satisfaction than that of replacing Gyrus auucctcns, 

 bridging convolution, and /// de passage, by isthmus, when the 

 cortical area is visible at the surface, and by vadum when it is 

 concealed; the occasional interruption of the central fissure is 

 thus the Isthmus ccjitralis ; that between the adjoining ends of 

 the parietal and paroccipital fissures, the Isthmus paroccipitalis, 

 etc. So far I cheerfully plead guilty to the charge. But with 

 what justice does Professor His complain further that this 

 employment of istJunus is in an "unusual sense " when his own 

 list Q0wX.2Lms Isthmus gyi-i foniicati ? Indeed, even were this 

 complaint well founded, it comes with a poor grace from {a) a 

 German whose fellow countryman (Waldeyer) applied (i 891) to 

 the nerve-cell the term neuron, which had been introduced by 

 me ('84) for the entire cerebro-spinal axis; from {b) a member 

 of the Nomenclatur Commission, whose chairman (Kolliker) 

 applied (1893) to the axis cylinder process of a nerve-cell a 

 term {neuraxon) practically identical with one (neuraxis) which 

 occurs in a standard French medical dictionary for the cerebro- 

 spinal axis; and from (<:) one who himself, upon altogether 

 inadequate grounds, has made the term in question, isthmus, 



1 Excepting with the chairman, p. 145. 



