Wilder, Neural Terms. 337 



§276. Although the specific terms included in these 

 recommendations are few, they exemplify all the commendable 

 features of the German report. Indeed, I fail to discover in 

 the latter any general statement, principle, rule or suggestion 

 that had not already been set forth with at least equal accuracy, 

 clearness and force in the writings of British and American 

 anatomists prior to 1895. 



§277. Notwithstanding the small number of individual 

 terms included in the American reports, the dates of appoint- 

 ment of the committees, 1885, 1889, 1891, the representative 

 nature of the terms, and the comprehensiveness of the general 

 recommendations, all justify deliberate and independent action 

 upon the part of anatomists in this country. Hence it is grati- 

 fying to see Dr. Dwight's indication of our duty in this regard. 

 He evidently advocates neither heedlessness nor a servility 

 that might merit the application of the following caustic com- 

 ment in an English review of an American work : 



" Our authors are merely foUowing the lead of a certain eminent 

 German anatomist, it being a fashion with American scientific writ- 

 ers (except a few who prefer a sort of scientific Volapuk^ ) to follow 

 pretty blindly the German scientific leads in the matter of nomenclat- 

 ure, and this even to the extent of bodily adopting actual German 

 words into a language which can already find two or three synonyms 

 for almost any word it may be desired to translate. No doubt many 

 English authors are also to blame in this respect, but the fact is none 

 the less to be deplored."- Nature, Aug. 13, 1896, 341. 



§278. It seems to me that in America the present condi- 

 tions are particularly favorable to deliberate thought and inde- 

 pendent- conclusion upon the subject of this article. The pro- 

 fessors of anatomy in some of the larger medical schools are 

 young and vigorous. Few if any are rightly to be reckoned as 

 "old," or at any rate as too old to change their minds and 



^Histologic terminology was apparently referred to here; but I imagine 

 that the remark might apply equally to my series of correlated names for one of 

 the encephalic seg^ments and some of its parts, viz., metencephalon, metacoelia, 

 nietatela, tnetaplexus and metaporus; see Table VII. 



'^The writer of a letter in the Nation for Oct. 8, 1896, declares that " there 

 is a reaction setting in in America against extreme Germanization, and that it 

 has not come too soon " For a comparison of the national Anlage with the in- 

 ternational proton, and a citation of Aristotelian precedents for the latter, 

 see ^212. 



