Wilder, Neural Terms. 265 



" The state of things has every year become worse and worse ; 

 in Germany especially it has become almost insupportable [§§58 60] 

 * * * In the same university sometimes different anatomical no- 

 menclatures exist. * * * In two or thiee years we shall have 

 finished and then we shall ask the anatomists of other countries to give 

 their candid opinion on the whole. ' 



1. The name should be as short as possible. 



2. Personal nomenclature should not if possible be used. 



3. No part should have more than one name. 



4. This name shall always be z, Latin one; every nation can af- 

 terward easily translate it [§42] after its own fashion. Latin is the 

 only real international language [§46], and by adopting it we hope to 

 have a sound foundation." 



§160. For the most part these principles are to be com- 

 mended. Before suggesting qualifications of the fourth items 

 I cannot refrain from calling attention to the absolute lack of 

 intimation either that any of these principles had ever been 

 enunciated before, or that any individual or committee had ever 

 undertaken to effect an improvement in anatomic language. 

 Granting the inutility of American precepts and examples that 

 a German should present to an English scientific body proposi- 

 tions as to terminologic reformation as if they were wholly 

 original and without (so far as recorded) naming those apostles, 

 Barclay, Whewell, Owen, and Pye-Smith (the last still living), 

 was surely most incongruous. 



§161. It will be seen from the various passages above 

 quoted that the Germans are at last ^ in accord with the Amer- 

 icans in recognizing the value of brevity as a feature of ana- 

 tomic terms. But I have as yet failed to find in their publica- 

 tions or priv^ate letters even the faintest glimmer of comprehen- 



1 I S3.y at last, in view of the enormous number of lengthy terms, both Latin 

 and vernacular, for whose continuance and even origin German anatomists are 

 responsible ; g6o. Some of the heteronyms are indeed "fearfully and wonder- 

 fully made," and can be most fitly characterized as verbal " tandems," unman- 

 ageable by persons not specially trained. As remarked by Owen, " The happy 

 facility for combination which the German language enjoys has long enabled 

 the very eminent anatomists of that intellectual part of Europe to condense 'the 

 definitions of anthropotomy into single words ; but these combinations cannot 

 become cosmopolitan; such terms as 'Zwischenkiemendeckehtiick,' are likely to 

 be restricted to the anatomists of the country where the vocal powers are trained 

 from infancy to their utterance." 



