SOME NEURAL TERMS. 153 



the employment of certain prepositions in composition with the 

 force of adjectives, there would still remain 1 special objection 

 to post as indicating toward the tail rather than toward the 

 back. This objection is radical, and the conflict involved is 

 irrepressible (pp. 144-145). 



Postramus. To this, as a mononymic substitute for Ramus 

 posterior arboris vitae cerebelli, Professor His offers no specific 

 objections, but they may be inferred to be (a) that it is a post 

 compound (pp. 146-152); (b) that the German list does not 

 include any terms for the branch-like divisions of the cerebellar 

 " tree." If these branches no longer merit specification, 

 postramus and praeramus will vanish quietly with the ancient 

 polyonyms from which they were condensed. 



Isthmus. Professor His complains that this word is used 

 by me in the sense of Gyrus annectens. This latter term does 

 not occur in the German list, so I assume that Gyrus transi- 

 tivtis is meant. No one of my terminologic propositions gives 

 me more satisfaction than that of replacing Gyrus annectens, 

 bridging convolution, and pli de passage, by isthmus, when the 

 cortical area is visible at the surface, and by vadum when it is 

 concealed; the occasional interruption of the central fissure is 

 thus the Isthmus ccntralis ; that between the adjoining ends of 

 the parietal and paroccipital fissures, the Isthmus paroccipitalis, 

 etc. So far I cheerfully plead guilty to the charge. But with 

 what justice does Professor His complain further that this 

 employment of isthmus is in an "unusual sense " when his own 

 list contains Isthmus gyri fornicati ? Indeed, even were this 

 complaint well founded, it comes with a poor grace -from (a) a 

 German whose fellow countryman (Waldeyer) applied (1891) to 

 the nerve-cell the term neuron, which had been introduced by 

 me ('84) for the entire cerebro-spinal axis; from (b) a member 

 of the Nomenclatur Commission, whose chairman (Kolliker) 

 applied (1893) to the axis cylinder process of a nerve-cell a 

 term (neuraxon) practically identical with one (neuraxis] which 

 occurs in a standard French medical dictionary for the cerebro- 

 spinal axis; and from (c) one who himself, upon altogether 

 inadequate grounds, has made the term in question, isthmus, 



1 Excepting with the chairman, p. 145. 



