302 JOUKNAI, OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY. 



ing his own, either as soon as discovered or periodically; a 

 sort of scientific confession of sins. 



The natural corollary to this would be that each well- 

 disposed discoverer of another's fault would inform him 

 privately so that he might make prompt correction. This 

 plan I have followed in several cases, and have reason to 

 believe it has served to avoid personal irritation and the 

 needless repetition of criticism. 



As to the particular matter to which Prof. Herrick has 

 called attention, my procrastination has been due to several 

 causes; one, the lack of time to review the whole subject, 

 and another, the consciousness that, whenever it was done, 

 there would have to be condemned not only my figures and 

 descriptions but those of our morphological leaders, Agassiz, 

 Gegenbaur, Huxley, Owen and Jeffries Wyman; for neither 

 they nor any others, so far as I know, up to the publication 

 of Rabl-Riickhard's papers in 1S83 and 1884, seem to have 

 perceived adequately the necessity of admitting the com- 

 plete circumscription of the encephalic cavities with "fishes," 

 and thus of recognizing the morphological significance of the 

 thin, or even wholly membranous portions of the brain. This 

 criticism, ungracious as it is, can be no longer deferred; to 

 speak pathologically, the predisposition which has long been 

 dormant in my mind has found in Prof. Herrick's kindly 

 commentary an " exciting cause." 



I may be permitted to add, in partial reparation for my 

 own share in this grave morphological dereliction, that the 

 need of considering the membranous portions of the mam- 

 malian brain was recognized as early as November, iS'j6;(^) 

 that in several subsequent publications(-') the morphological 



1 My colleague, then fourth year student, Prof. S. H. Gage, has preserved the notes 

 of dissections of cats' brains, dated November 25, 1879, and January i, 1877, made for the 

 purpose of demonstrating the complete exclusion of the thalamus from the paracoele 

 (lateral ventricle) by the membranes and plexus connecting the contiguous margins of the 

 taenia and fimbria, and the point is made in the printed synopsis of a lecture to the class 

 in Physiology in the former month. 



2 " The Brain of the Cat," Philos Soc. Proc, 1881; " Anatomical Technology," 1882, 

 1886; "The Cartwright Lectures," 1884, N. V. Medical Journal, XXXIX. pp. 142, 147, 



