SOME NEURAL TERMS. 17I 



into a language which can already find two or three synonyms for 

 almost any word it may be desired to translate. No doubt many 

 English authors are also to blame in this respect, but the fact is none 

 the less to be deplored.-^ Nature, Aug. 13, 1896, 341. '^ 



It seems to me that in America the present conditions are 

 particularly favorable to deliberate thought and independent 

 conclusion upon the subject of this article. The professors of 

 anatomy in some of the larger medical schools are young and 

 vigorous. Few, if any, are rightly to be reckoned as " old," or 

 at any rate as too old to change their minds and their modes of 

 expression when occasions arise.^ In view of all the circum- 

 stances, the attitude appropriate for American anatomists, 

 desirous to cooperate yet maintaining their independence and 

 self-respect, is indicated in the following lines of Liicretitcs : — 



Judicio perpende : et si tibi vera indentur, 



Dede manus : ant si falsutn est, adcingere contra. 



Those anatomists who are either interested already in the 

 improvement of nomenclature, or whose regard for their suc- 

 cessors leads them to sacrifice some present time and effort in 

 their behalf, are urged to read upon the subject, to reflect, to 

 confer, and to correspond freely. So intimate is the relation 

 between verbal expression and mental operation that, even 

 when we imagine ourselves above such weakness, criticism of 

 the former too often means disturbance of the latter. Hence, 

 as with other matters involving individual habit and preference, 

 an actual interview may sometimes be less productive of good 

 than a correspondence that eliminates more completely the 



1 The writer of a letter in The jVatioit for Oct. 8, 1S96, declares that "there is 

 a reaction setting in in America against e-\treme Germanization, and that it has 

 not come too soon." For a comparison of the national Antage with the interna- 

 tional /r^/(7;/, and a citation of Aristotelian precedents for the latter, see p. 158. 



' The needless use of German heteronyms has been condemned by Schafer 

 (Natuj-e, July 22, 1S97, pp. 269, 270) and by the writer {The A\itio7i, May 11, 

 1894, pp. 349-351)- 



3 The following incident encourages the belief that such changes of both 

 opinion and custom may occur at any age. While preparing the new edition of 

 his Anatomy ('89) Leidy preferred central lobe or island of Reil ; but later, at 

 the age of sixty-six, as chairman of the committee on nomenclature of the Asso- 

 ciation of American Anatomists, he signed the report recommending insula. 



