Lamb, Association of American Anatomists. 51 



quasi-mononym like the hyphenated " infero-fron talis " sometimes em- 

 ployed. 



B. Mesocoelia {English tnesocoele or mesocele). — This single word is 

 recommended as a name for the entire cavity of the mesencephalon, the re- 

 gion including the crura and the (juadrigeminum. 



The following considerations apply to the general use of coelia 

 (English coele or cele) in place of ventriculus. 



(i). Its Greek origin renders it compoundable regularly and eu- 

 phoniously with the characteristic prefixes already employed in the seg- 

 mental names, e. g., mesencephalon etc. (2). These compounds are 

 mononyms, and therefore capable of inflection (e. g., mesocoeliae), 

 derivation (e. g., mesocoeliana), and adoption into other languages 

 without material change ; e. g., English, mesocele; French, mesocoe- 

 lia; German, Mesokolie; Italian, mesocelia. (3). The various na- 

 tional paronyms thus formed are hkewise capable of derivation; e. g., 

 mesocehan. (4). There is classic authority for use of coelia in the 

 sense of encephalic cavity. In the lexicon of Liddell and Scott noikia 

 EyHEq)dXov is quoted as in good and regular standmg among Greek med- 

 ical writers. According to Burdach ("von Baue und Leben des Gehirns", 

 1819-22, II, 301, 378, 380), Galen designated the "fourth ventricle" 

 as yioiXia oTtidOiov kyy.Ecpd'X.ov, rtrdprr] xotXia, and oitiaBia noikia 

 (De usu partium, Lib. VIII, cxii, p. 170); the "third ventricle" as 

 fjii6r], rpiTTf noikia (idem. IX, III, 172); and the "lateral ventricles" 

 as TtpodBiai Hoikiai (De odoratus instrumento, II, jig). Coelia is 

 then certainly not "new."^ (5) These ancient usages are assumed 

 to be familiar to most anatomists, who therefore should recognize the 

 compounds with httle or no hesitation. (6) The compounds are so 

 euphonious and so obviously correlated with the segmental names as to 

 be learned and remembered easily even by general students and by such 

 as may not have had a classical training. (7). In recent times coelia 

 has been independently proposed by two anatomists, teachers as well 

 as investigators. 2 (8). It has been adopted more or less completely 



1 Dr. Achilles Rose, of New York City, informs the secretary of the Com- 

 mittee that in the modern Greek treatise on Anatomy by UaTCaioodw ov 

 (Athens, 1888-1890, 3 vols.) the encephalic cavities are designated by di 

 Ttkccyiai Hoikiai; rpirrj rj /.lidrj xoikiai; XEtdprn xoikia. 



'The secretary of this committee, March, 1881 ; Prof. T. Jeffery Parker, of 

 Otago, New Zealand, August, 1882; in addition to the three publications enu- 

 merated in the Bibliography of " Neural Terms," there should be named his 

 two papers on Apteryx (Philos. Trans., 1891 and 1892) and Parker and Has- 

 well's " Zoology," 1897, 



