THE MITOCHONDRIAL CONSTITUENTS OF PROTOPLASM. 47 



II. NOMENCLATURE. 



The terminology of mitochondria is unnecessarily comj)licated and confusing. 

 The confusion has resulted from incoordination and from hasty individual action 

 in elaborating new names, often only to discard them in a new paper in favor 

 of some other. Pome have attempted to convey information with respect to the 

 morphology of mitochondria, others with regard to their physiology, and still others 

 with respect to their colloidal chemistry. There has been no attempt to come 

 together in a friendly spirit and arrive at some agreement or compromise. It is to 

 be deplored that c^'tologA' should be so far behind gross anatomy in possessing no 

 official list of terms like those of the Basle Anatomical Nomenclature. That the 

 need for this is great may be seen by reference to table 1 (pp. 44-46). 



The term "mitochondria" originated with Benda (1899a, p. 397), who introduced 

 it to designate certain " Fadenkornern " which he had been studj'ing in spermato- 

 genesis. It is derived from the Greek niros, a thread, and xovdpos, a grain. 



It was soon discovered that mitochondria do not always occur in the form of 

 thread-granules and investigators grasped at the idea that they should be named 

 on the basis of their morphology. It was felt that the word "mitochondria" 

 should be apphed only in the sense in which Benda originally used it. Accordingly 

 Meves (1907a, p. 401) devised the term " Chondriokont " to describe the rod-like 

 forms and Benda, ^ almost simultaneously, came out with a whole list of terms 

 with which to describe the various forms of mitochondria: " Chondriomiten " 

 (threads), " Chondriorhabden " (shaft-like forms), " Chondriospharen " (spheres), 

 and "Chondriom" or " Mitochondrion! " (the cj^toplasmic content of mitochondria 

 of whatever form) . 



The words " chondriorhabden " and "chondriospharen" were not favorably 

 received and were soon forgotten and investigators gradually drifted into the use 

 of the following nomenclature for mitochondria based purel}^ on morphology: 

 " chondriosomes " (a generic term to include all forms); " mitochondries " (granules); 

 " chondriocontes " (straight or curved threads); " chondriomites " (filaments of 

 granules); and "chondriome" (the cytoplasmic content of chondriosomes). But, 

 since all these forms grade by imperceptible transitions into each other, there was 

 much confusion, and it is a difficult matter to find two investigators who are in 

 entire agreement on the question of nomenclature. 



As I have pointed out elsewhere (Cowdry, 1916a, p. 424), this system of 

 terminology based on morphology is entireh' superfluous in the light of recent w'ork. 

 We are coming to realize that the fundamental thing is the nature of the material 

 rather than the form which it assumes (see p. 66). The Lewises (1915, p. 353), 

 in the Uving cells of tissue cultures, were actually able to observe that mitochondria 

 are continually changing in shape by bending in various directions, by shortening 

 and thickening, by elongating, and by thinning, etc. They saw rods and tln-eads 

 change into granules, threads fuse to form networks, and many other alterations 

 in the morphology of mitochondria. In other words, the same material under 

 different conditions assumed different forms, as one would naturally expect. 



'In the discussion of a paper by Van der Stricht (1904, p. 145). 



