Fish, Terminology of the Nerve Cell. 173 



equivalents of nerve unit, but this is open to the objection that 

 it would not be strictly applicable to cells which have no den- 

 drons, such as are said to exist in the spinal ganglia. For 

 the axis-cylinder process he suggests neuraxon or simply axon ; 

 but the latter term is already pre-empted having been used for 

 ten years by Wilder as the equivalent of the longitudinal skelet- 

 al axis of the vertebrate body. 



The following suggestions are offered because the matter is 

 as yet in an unsettled condition and because however great 

 the number and appropriateness of new terms, it will ultim- 

 ately become the " survival of the fittest." For the axis-cylinder 

 process the term neurite is proposed and for the other processes of 

 the cells, retain the word dendrites. Except for the final syll- 

 able these are essentially the terms used by Schafer and with 

 their adjective endings fit without any difficulty into his scheme 

 of classification ; but the suffix ite relieves us of the confu- 

 sion of the use of neuron, and furthermore in anatomy and zool- 

 ogy refers to that which is " part and parcel or a necessary com- 

 ponent of any part or organ : as sternite, pleurite, tergite, and 

 podite. " From the standpoint of paronymy or the adaptation 

 of a word into other lauguages with whatever modification of 

 form may be necessary, neurite deserves recognition on an equal 

 footing with the above examples. 



Cells then may be dendritic or adendritic; mononcutitic, dineu- 

 ritic etc., according to the number of neurites present. A confu- 

 sion with any pathological term is scarcely likely to result, since 

 the prefixes mono and di etc., would limit the meaning to this par- 

 ticular usage. Although two kinds of process are differentiated 

 by the terms dendrites and neurites, the writer does not mean to 

 imply that the dendrites are not nervous in function, for evi- 

 dence seems to accumulate in favor of the view that their func- 

 tion is nervous, rather than nutritive as stated by Golgi. Be- 

 sides the difference of form of these processes there is ground 

 for believing that the functional difference lies in the probability 

 that the dendrites are the collectors of the nerve impulse, as it is 

 transmitted by contiguity from one nerve unit to another and 



