GEXETIC INTEEPEETATIONS IN THE DOMAIN OF 

 ANATOMY.* 



Presidextial Address before the Association of A:\rERicAN 



Anatomists. 



BY 

 CHARLES-SEDGWICK MINOT, LL. D., D. Sc. 



The science of anatomv, altliough one of the oldest of all sciences, was 

 long neglected in x4.merica, and taught only in a routine fashion by 

 professors who had little or no thought for the promotion of the science 

 or any aim higher than teaching a certain number of established facts 

 in gross anatomy to the maximum possible number of students. Within 

 the last generation the few pioneers of anatomy have been succeeded by 

 teachers, many of whom share the highest ideals of anatomical science, 

 and have contributed important discoveries by which it has been really 

 advanced. Our Society is at once the symbol and the outcome of , these 

 comparatively new conditions in America, and we have as our duty not 

 only actively to encourage research, to spread anatomical knowledge, and 

 to earn appreciation of anatomy as a living science, l)ut also to exert a 

 missionary influence l)y which the dignity and vitality of our science 

 shall be brought to recognition at all our universities. 



* The following recent or new technical terms are used in the course of the 

 address and are recommended for adoption. 



Cytogenic glands, false glands which produce cells, as for example, the 

 lymph and genital glands. 



Cytomorphosis. to designate comprehensively all the structural modifica- 

 tions which cells or successive generations of cells may undergo from the 

 earliest undifferentiated stage to their final destruction. 



False glands, all glands, which develop without ducts. 



Lymphwum, a more or less definitely circumscribed area consisting of cellu- 

 lar reticulum, the meshes of which are charged with leucocytes and are in 

 direct communication with lymph-vessels or more rarely with blood-vessels. 

 It is a site for the multiplication of leucocytes. 



Mesepatium. the membrane (French, mcso) extending from the stomach 

 and duodenum to the median line of the ventral abdominal wall, and in 

 which the liver develops. It comprises a dorsal mesepatium (lesser omen- 

 tum) and ventral mesepatium (falciform or suspensory ligament). 

 American' Journal of Anatomy. — Vol. IV. 



