250 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



no reason for the retention x)f a word which is not merely need- 

 less, but really burdensome by reason of the frequency with 

 which certain parts are mentioned. In one short paper (^Brain, 

 October, 1885, 17 7 -17 g) corpus callosuni occurs twenty times, 

 an average of once in five lines ; corpus occupies 2. 5 lines, one- 

 fortieth of the entire paper. 



§113. The elimination of corpiis from all neural names 

 constituted one of the fundamental propositions of my first 

 communication upon the general subject ('80, /), and since that 

 time it has been consistently practised and persistently preached. 



§114. By the use of the genitive case, corporis callosi, 

 the German committee have designated the various divisions of 

 the callosum, (splenium, genu, truncus and rostrum) ; also the 

 sulcus along its dorsal margin. They have thus avoided the 

 use of the secondary adjective callosalis. But in expressly re- 

 jecting pcdunculus cojpofis callosi in favor of gyrus siibcallosus 

 (His, '95, 170-172) they practically concede the superfluity of 

 the corpus. 



§115. Unless we are prepared to abandon all adjective- 

 substantives (§118) there seems to be no reason for the further 

 retention o{ corpus in any of the terms enumerated in §111. 

 Corpus fornicis of the German list is not open to the objection 

 that naturally arises against corpus corporis callosi but tnincus 

 corpus callosi is a good precedent for trimc2is fornicis if the 

 distinction be necessary. 



§116. DURA MS. dura mater. — This constitutes a type 

 and test case for a considerable group of anatomic terms from 

 which, for fifteen years, I have dropped the (here italicized) 

 nouns, viz., pia mater; substantia alba; substantia cinerea ; 

 membrana {or tunica) serosdi ; mb. {or tn.) mucosa; 7nb. {or tn.) 

 submucosal mb. (or tn.) arachnoidea; medulla oblongata. From 

 the group of " corpus " polyonyms they differ in that the elim- 

 ination of the substantive leaves a feminine instead of a neuter 

 adjective to be used substantively, and as a base for the forma- 

 tion of secondary adjectives, dural, mucosal, cinereal, arach- 

 noidal, etc. 



§ 1 1 7. Curiously enough the first precedent for this known 



