50 Journal of Comparative Neurology, 



known ; indeed, so vague are the resemblances implied in them that 

 certainty can hardly be insured without resort to the rather puerile 

 mnemonic device of associating the letter n in calcarina and lingualis. 

 But since Fissura calcarina and Fissura collateralis are now almost uni- 

 versally employed, and no new words have to be introduced, there 

 seem to us to be several advantages and no disadvantages in designating 

 the gyri just ventrad of the two fissures respectively by terms indicat- 

 ing their relative positions. 



Gyrus subfrontalis (46). In the B. N. A. was adopted "Gyrus 

 frontalis inferior" to the exclusion of the common synonyms, " con- 

 volutio Brocae" and " Gyrus frontalis tertius."i The question is there- 

 fore narrowed down to the relative merits of " Gyrus frontalis inferior" 

 as adopted in the B. N. A. and Gyrus subfrontalis as preferred by us ; 

 and since this is a type of a large number of cases of difference be- 

 tween the two lists, it will be presented in some detail. 



The two terms agree in being both distinctly Locative Names. 

 The location of a part is a general and comprehensive attribute, and, 

 as remarked by Owen, " signifies its totality without calling prominent- 

 ly to mind any one particular quality, which is apt thereby to be 

 •deemed, undeservedly, more essential than the rest." Locative names 

 form two natural groups, Prepositional and Adjectival. Prepositional 

 Locatives. — With these the qualifying prefix, a preposition or adverb, 

 indicates the location of a part relatively to some other part, more im- 

 portant, more easily recognized, or previously designated. Praecuneus 

 •designates a cortical area just " in front of " the cuneus; subcalcarinus 

 and subcoUaterahs are prepositional locatives. Adjectival Locatives. — 

 These indicate either the location of a part within some general region, 

 or its membership of a series. Vertebra thoracalis designates a spinal 

 segment in the thorax. Commissura anterior, cm. media and cm. pos- 

 terior distinguish members of a series. Subfrontalis is an adjectival lo- 

 cative, and the preposition sub is employed as a prefix in the sense of 

 inferior or lower; it is also a true mononymic adjective, and not a 



^ Both these names were rejected by the secretary of this Committee in 

 1885 (" On two little known cerebral fissures, with suggestions as to fissural 

 and gyral names," A?ner. Neurol. Trans.; Jour. Nerv. and Mental Disease, 

 XII.; abst. in Neurolog. Centralblatt, Dec. 15, 18S5), the former as an eponym 

 and as including the needlessly long word convolutio, and the latter as a tri- 

 onym and because the enumeration of the three concentric frontal arches might 

 quite as naturally begin with the "inferior" as with the "superior; " indeed, 

 this was done by Meynert ("Psychiatry," Fig. 9) ; likewise by Leuret in the 

 analogous case of the arches about the Sylvian fissure of Carnivora. 



