1897.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 193 



of days, and for the verification and repetition of results 

 obtained and published years ag^o. 



These unnecessary horrors, practiced openly with sanc- 

 tion of United States medical officers, make me think that 

 string-ent laws are needed to restrict such proceedings. 

 None should be permitted not calculated to g"ive addition- 

 al useful information, and then under perfect anaesthesia, 

 and under the supervision of a board of competent men 

 assigned to that duty. 



Aware of the possibility of such a condition in a scientific 

 institution located in the District of Columbia and under 

 the control of a government so supine, can any one, knowing- 

 of the existence of the above-named abuses, oppose a bill 

 that aims to make such conduct amenable to law? 



Nomenclature. — It has always been a source of surprise 

 to us that men will spend so much time over questions of 

 nomenclature and even of classification. The real nature of 

 plants and animals furnishes a great variety of topics for 

 study, and we ought to be able to interest ourselves there- 

 in to the exclusion of contests over nomenclature. No- 

 menclature has usually been based on a few superficial 

 characters and has therefore been liable toincessant change 

 as the result of discovering new facts. All this is a false 

 view of matters and is not scientific. 



A scientific nomenclature would be absolutely arbitrary. 

 Let blue things be called viridis; let short things be called 

 longus; let it be fully understood that pending the acqui- 

 sition of full knowledge of a form our name is no clue to 

 its characters. We must call it something but it matters 

 not what we call it if we agree upon its name. An arbitra- 

 ry name once affixed, let no one challenge it or seek to 

 change it. As a sample of the foolishness which men of 

 pseudo-science are forever indulging in, the following quo- 

 tation will be of interest. It is from the Presidential Ad- 

 dress delivered before the London Quekett Club recently 

 and it is proper to apologize for filling our space even to 

 this extent with such nonsense. Mr. Thomas and Mr. 

 Carter are both too sensible men to waste time in frivolity. 



