Present and Prospective 193 



fruitful union between the specialities of medical 

 research necessitated by scientific division of 

 labour, there will be barren separation and Babel- 

 like confusion of tongues. As no one can have 

 perfect knowledge of all parts of medicine — and 

 yet every practitioner ought to have a sound con- 

 ception of the organism as one vital whole, and 

 of the relations of its different parts and disorders 

 to one another in it — a simplicity of nomenclature 

 would seem not merely desirable but essential. 



The coinage of words without regard to their 

 purity or pleasantness, not to say that which 

 could not be said in common language, not even 

 to avoid circuity of speech, is not unpleasing only, 

 but a positive detriment to thought ; for it is 

 certain that, as Bacon said, words shoot back on 

 the understanding of the wisest and mightily 

 entangle and pervert the judgment. Vague and 

 slovenly words embody and perpetuate vague and 

 slovenly ideas ; once fixed, too, they lose their 

 ugly features by familiarity and cannot be eradi- 

 cated. Then nothing is easier than to stay in the 

 word without having a clear and distinct idea of 

 what is beneath it. For example, the now 

 familiar word neurasthenia — word of comfort to 

 doctor's tongue and patient's ear — often suffices, 

 without further inquiry into the half-dozen possi- 

 ble causes of nerve-weakness, one of which is the 

 real cause of the trouble and ought to direct the 

 treatment. Always, too, in case of doubt salva- 

 tion can be sought in the bigger word pseinlo- 



13 



