Wilder, Neural Terms. 277 



use of praestemwn by retaining manubrhim ster?ii, they would 

 probably decline to regard them as adequate justifications for 

 postcava. But can they consistently_ condemn it or any sim- 

 ilar terms ? Let us see. 



§185. Prof. His, the German committee, and the Ana- 

 tomische Gesellschaft, after several years deliberation and appar- 

 ently without any disagreement, have adopted and recommended 

 the names metencephalon 2ivid prosencephaloti for certain segments 

 of the brain. Now meta and pros are the English forms of the 

 Greek ^ezd and Ttp6<;. These are both prepositions. Like post 

 and prae they are also adverbs. The terms into which they 

 enter have no reference to a third part "behind" which or 

 "before" which the metencephal and prosencephal are situated. 

 The German translation of prosencephalon is Vorderhtm, and the 

 English, forebrain, both signifying the first or most cephalic 

 member of the series of coordinate encephalic segments. With 

 slight modifications the foregoing remarks apply equally to a 

 third name adopted by the German committee, diencephalon, 

 the preposition 8id having the force of an adjective. 



§186. I am unable to recognize any distinction, logical or 

 etymological, between the metencephalon and prosencephalon 

 which the Germans commend, and \.h.Q postcava and praecava 

 which Prof. His condemns. The irregular terms for which he 

 is in part responsible may be few ; but his virtuous denunciation 

 of me for producing a larger number of the same sort is no 

 more reasonable than the demand of the woman to be punished 

 lightly for bringing forth an illegitimate child upon the ground 

 that it was "such a little one." 



§187. Strictly, however, even if the degree of oppro- 

 brium to be cast upon the individual concerned were to be 

 measured by the number of terms of a certain kind, this 

 would have no bearing upon the question of the acceptability 

 of a given term. Postcava and praecava are to be considered 

 upon their merits as brief, convenient, and absolutely unambig- 

 uous designations intended to replace inconvenient descriptive 

 phrases. In favor of vena cava superior and vena cava iiiferior 



