280 THE MUSCLES. 



received particular names. Since the days of Galen they had been distinguished 

 by the numerical epithets of first, second, third, etc., to indicate their place and 

 their order of superposition in the regions to which they belonged. It is in this 

 fashion that they are designated in the Italian work on the Anatomy of the 

 Horse by Ruini. 



b. Sylvius was the fii*st to give the muscles real names ; and, his example 

 being followed by succeeding anthropotomists, the nomenclature ot these organs 

 was soon completed. But no general view, no methodic spirit, guided Sylvius 

 and his successoi-s ; it was sometimes their form, and sometimes their direction 

 (oblique, straight, transverse muscles), position {intercostal muscles), uses (adductory 

 abductor tnusctes), etc., to which the muscles owed their names. Bourgelat 

 applied this nomenclature to the Horse, but modified it in many points. 



c. Chaussier, stnick by the imperfections of the nomenclature introduced into 

 science by Sylvius, sought to substitute for it another, much more methodical. 

 This anatomist gave to each muscle a name formed by two words, indicating the 

 insertions of the organ. Girard imported this ingenious idea into veterinary 

 anatomy. It was in applying this nomenclatm'e to the muscles of the Horse 

 that he gave the name of supra-acromio-trochanteriiis to the supra-spinatns of 

 Sylvius and Bourgelat, and subscapulo-trochanterius to the subscapular of these 

 authorities. When two muscles have the same attachments, they are distin- 

 guished by adding to the names which indicate their insertions, another which 

 signifies the relative position or size of these organs. Thus, we distinguish the 

 long abductor of Bourgelat from the short abdudor, both of which would merit 

 the name of scapulo-humeral, according to the nomenclature of Chaussier, by 

 the epithets of great scapulo-humeral and small scapido-humeral. The binary 

 nomenclature of Chaussier is a useful aid to the memory of students, for a 

 knowledge of the name of a muscle implies that of its attachments and uses ; 

 but, nevertheless, notwithstanding its advantages, this new nomenclature did not 

 supersede the old one ; because it ceased to be correct when applied to com- 

 parative anatomy, the same muscles not having the same insertions in all the species.^ 



* It is not, however, that the ancient nomenclature has more advantages in this respect 

 than the new. What can be more improper, for example, than the names of deltoid, spleuius, 

 soleus, digastrieus, etc.? Do the muscles which receive these designations, considered in 

 Mammals only, offer in all species the form or the structure which justifies the employment 

 of these names in tlie human species? Are the distiuctive epithets of great, medium, little,, 

 etc., given to many of them, reasonably applicable in every case? May not the same objectiou 

 be urged against tiie majority of the names derived from their uses, complications, etc. ? 



No system of myological nomenclature is really philosophical, and we are of those who 

 believe it to be indispensably necessary to create one; indeed, we are inclined to think tliat it 

 would be simple and easy to attain this result in starting from a basis the fixity and invari- 

 ability of which should be well defined. And this basis is, in our opinion, already discovered ; 

 it is the principle of connections founded by E. Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire in his immortal Phihsophie 

 Anatomique — a principle to which modern science certainly owes its finest conquests. 



We are desirous that the myolngical nomenclature should rest entirely, in the first place, on 

 the relations of the muscles with the bones of the skeleton, or with other organs equally fixed and 

 very important ; in the second place, on the reciprocal connections of the muscles. 



Such is our rule ; and it is not precisely new, fur the older anatomists were often inspired 

 by it, though unwittingly, as the principle on which it is founded was to them entirely 

 unknown; this circumstance, however, immediately leads us to an appreciation of its value. 

 For instance, what could be happier than the name of intorcostals given to the inuscleB' 

 situated between the ribs, and their distinction into external and internal ? Here we have 

 names which indicate the relations of the muscles tliey designate, with the portions of the skeleton 

 and the reciprocal connections of these muscles. It can also be applied in an equally rigorous 

 manner to every species. We may also cite the supra-costals, the intertransverse, the trans- 



