122 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



and German. The excess in these two languages might be 

 accounted for in part by the international character of the 

 former and by the large number of publications in the latter. 



But a careful scrutiny disclosed two other causes: (i) Many 

 of the Latin names, especially the older, comprised so many 

 words as to constitute descriptive phrases, and to furnish 

 opportunity for conscious or unconscious abridgment and 

 permutation (p. 113); each resultant combination had to be 

 regarded as a name. In W. & G. ('89), 56, are enumerated 

 no less than twenty-three distinct Latin names for the fibrous 

 bundle connecting the cerebellum with the oblongata ; they 

 average nearly 2.7 words each. 1 



(2) Of the German names but a small proportion (58, or two 

 per cent of the total) had any obvious resemblance to equivalent 

 Latin terms (Fissur to fissura, Commissur to commissure^ 

 Centralcanal to canalis centralis] ; the vast majority were 

 vernacular translations (e.g., Briicke, Schenkel, Seepferdefuss y 

 Sehhugelpolster}? Different writers made different transla- 

 tions, and considerable variation occurred in different parts of 

 the same publication (p. 112). Hence there arose a multitude 

 of terms, acceptable and intelligible only to readers of the 

 same nationality, and bearing no relation to the original or 

 international Latin terms. In a greater or less degree the 

 same might be said of the other modern languages. 



It will be seen that two opposing influences were operating. 

 Each anatomist preferred to employ terms belonging to his own 

 language; at the same time he preferred that other anatomists 

 should employ Latin terms with which he was already familiar, 

 or which were intelligible without an intimate acquaintance 

 with other modern languages than his own. 



With a view to reconciling these two opposing tendencies I 

 formulated ('85) the distinction between heteronyms and par- 

 onyms, and proposed that, with few exceptions, heteronyms 

 should be discarded in favor of paronyms. " Since each par- 

 onym suggests the original Latin name, the latter forms a bond 



1 All these might be replaced by the single word postpedunculus. 



2 Without imputing even so worthy a motive as national self-satisfaction, the 

 effect was as if certain neurologists had yielded to a desire to confer upon the 

 printed page an obtrusively German aspect. 



