14 INTRODUCTION. 



When two or more parts are similar, or have similar relations, to distin- 

 guisli them by joining to some common title already in use, prefixes indica- 

 tive of their relative positions ; e. g., postgeniculatum, prcegeyiiculatum. 



To shorten the names of several parts by omitting the word corpus, and 

 using the neuter adjective as a substantive. 



To keep modern usage and the rules of classical etymology constantly in 

 mind, but not to be hindered thereby from the employment or even the 

 formation of terms which are eminently desirable from the jjractical stand- 

 point. 



To discard terms which indicate size, those which refer to the natural 

 attitude of man or animals, most vernacular names, and all names of the 

 reproductive organs which have been applied needlessly to other parts. 



The terms employed by anatomists form two divisions: those which indi- 

 cate the position ox direction of organs, and those by which the organs them- 

 selves are designated. Since, also, writers have often treated of them sej^a- 

 rately, it will be convenient here to consider anatomical toponomy and 

 organonofng under distinct headings. 



§ 26. Designation of Organs — Organonymy. — There are probably 

 few investigators or teachers of comparative anatomy who have not been 

 impressed, in some degree, with the desirability of some modification of the 

 prevailing nomenclature of organs, — the "bizarre nomenclature of anthro- 

 potomy," (Owen, A, II, 143) — based as it is upon the peculiar features of 

 the human body, which has been fitly characterized, from a moriDhological 

 point of view, as "not a model, but a monstrosity." 



This impression may give rise to special joapers, like those of Owen, (166), 

 Maclise (1), and Pye-Smith (1), or simply to more or less extended remarks 

 upon the subject, with or without the use or presentation of new terms. 



More than one hundred pages of Vicq d'Azyr's great Anatomy (A) are 

 devoted to a " Vocabulaire anatomique, augmente d'un grand norabre de 

 termes nouveaux." 



In the Preface to his "Anatomiedu Chat" (A, pp. xiv — xvii), Straus- 

 Durckheim devotes several pages to a discussion of anatomical nomenclature, 

 and the body of the work contains many original names. Professor 

 H. S. Williams calls attention (A, Preface), to the "crying need of a stand- 

 ard and uniform nomenclature of comparative anatomy." 



In the Preface to their recent account of the morphology of the skull 

 (A), Parker and Bettany say : " It has been attempted to narrate the facts 

 by means of a consistent terminology, amplifying what Prof. Huxley has so 

 admirably developed." Several of Huxley's papers (as 70), contain new 

 terms, most of which' have been generally accepted, and in a greater or less 

 degree the same is true of the elder Agassiz (A), Gegenbaur (59), Ha?ckel 

 (A), Marsh (1), and others. 



