SOME NEURAL TERMS. 151 



of me for producing a larger number of the same sort is 

 no more reasonable than the demand of the woman to be 

 punished lightly for bringing forth an illegitimate child upon 

 the ground that it was " such a little one." 



Strictly, however, even if the degree of opprobrium to be 

 cast upon the individual concerned were to be measured by the 

 number of terms of a certain kind, this would have no bearing 

 upon the question of the acceptability of a given term. Post- 

 cava and praecava are to be considered upon their merits as 

 brief, convenient, and absolutely unambiguous designations 

 intended to replace inconvenient descriptive phrases. In favor 

 of vena cava sttperior and vena cava inferior antiquity alone can 

 be urged ; against praecava and postcava can be alleged only the 

 sinfulness of comparative youth. 



In the foregoing discussion I have refrained from following 

 one line of argument that readily suggests itself and is, indeed, 

 almost formulated in the hypothetic series between posterior 

 vena cava 2C(\&postcava> as stated on p. 148, viz. y the prefix /^j/ 

 might not unnaturally be regarded as the abbreviation of poste- 

 rior we postero. Were compounds of post alone concerned, this 

 simple line of argument might, perhaps, be adequate; but it 

 will not serve for compounds of the correlative prae, nor for 

 those of the Greek prepositions, eVt, />tera, VTTO, etc. 



The straightforward way of dealing with the matter is to 

 assume that post and prae, in composition, may have the force 

 of the adjectives posterior and anterior respectively. 1 " If this 

 be treason, make the most of it." 



It seems to me that the nature of the issue between postcava 

 and vena cava inferior (or posterior) is such as to involve the 

 acceptance or rejection of the following propositions: 



(a) Language was made by and for man, and not the 

 reverse. 



(b) Grammatic rules are framed from time to time in order 

 to maintain the uniformity that is acceptable and convenient. 



1 It is well understood in this country that the New York Medical Journal and 

 the Encyclopaedic Medical Dictionary stand for the highest scholarship. Yet so 

 long ago as 1885, when some of my simplified terms were submitted to him, their 

 editor, Dr. F. P. Foster, replied: " I think some of the words excellent, praecom- 

 missura, for example." 



