1897] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 193 



of days, and for the verilicatioii 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 proceeding's. 

 None should be permitted not calculated to give 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 an}- 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 g"reat variety of topics for 

 study, and we oug-ht to be able to interest ourselves there- 

 in to the exclusion of contests over nomenchiture. No- 

 menclature has usually been based on a few superficial 

 characters and has therefore been liable to incessant chang-e 

 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 thing-s be called viridis; let short things be called 

 long-us; 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 ag-rec 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 Ouekett Club recently 

 and it is proper to apolog-ize 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. 



