io ANATOMICAL NOMENCLATURE 



There is a minimum of truth in these objections, but the difficulties to be 

 encountered are far less real than would at first sight appear. For, in the first 

 place, experience has taught that the use of the BNA along with the older 

 text-books is not an impracticable task. The older books contain a majority 

 of the BNA terms and a great many others besides, so that the use of the BNA 

 resolves itself, in these circumstances, largely into an emphasizing of the names 

 of choice and the omission of the unnecessary synonyms; the addition of the 

 few new terms required meets with no difficulty if the instructors be well versed 

 in them. Since Professor Mall called my attention to the BNA in 1895 and 

 recommended it to me I have used it more or less consistently and with satis- 

 faction ever since in my anatomical and clinical teaching in Baltimore and in 

 Chicago. Other American teachers who have done the same tell me that they 

 have found its employment easy and rewarding, and students, often unsolicited, 

 express marked approval of the BNA terms where they differ from those for- 

 merly in use. The BNA is now used regularly .in several of the American 

 anatomical laboratories and, in large part though not exclusively, in others. 



That the student's text-books and atlases should be written in the BNA 

 is, nevertheless, obviously desirable. In 1899, in writing a book on the nervous 

 system, I found it satisfactory to employ it (with minor exceptions), exclusively, 

 for the domains which it covered. Soon after, in the dissecting-room teaching in 

 Chicago, I was impressed with the idea that the student's task could be greatly 

 simplified if a guide to dissection were written in terms of the BNA, each term 

 being brought in at the moment the pupil meets with the structure named in 

 his practical work. To meet this need, I prepared and had published, with 

 the help of Drs. D. D. Lewis and D. G. Revell, in 1904, "A Laboratory Manual 

 of Human Anatomy." Meanwhile, three excellent anatomical atlases, those 

 of Spalteholz, Sobotta and Toldt, had appeared in Germany, each with the 

 BNA terms printed at the sides of the figures. In order to make the task of 

 students and teachers still lighter, and again encouraged by Professor Mall, 

 I undertook during the years 1900-1904 the translation into English of the text 

 of Professor Spalteholz's work, and since then its beautiful illustrations and 

 brief, precise, anatomical descriptions have been available to American and 

 English readers. The kind way in which these books have been received by 

 American anatomists and clinicians makes it evident that there exists in this 

 country a warm sympathy with the movement to render anatomical terminology 

 more simple, less cumbersome, and more precise. 



In 1902, Dr. Hardesty used the BNA exclusively in his useful "Neurological 

 Technique," and in the small text of Dr. Whitehead (1900) and the monograph 

 of Dr. Sabin (1901), both on the brain, it had also been adopted. Indications, 

 indeed, now point to its general acceptance by American and British writers. 

 Besides Spalteholz's Atlas that of Sobotta and that of Toldt are now available 

 in English translation. The new edition of that popular text-book, Morris's 

 Anatomy, edited by Mr. Henry Morris, of London, and Professor McMur- 

 rich, of Ann Arbor, just now being published, is couched in the BNA terms 

 It would take too long to cite all the books and important articles in which these 

 names figure. A monograph recently published by Dr. Potter, of St. Louis, 

 entitled " Topographical Anatomy of the Viscera of the Thorax and Abdomen, " 

 should not, however, be omitted, as it is most valuable as a companion to any one 

 studying, for the first time, a series of cross-sections through the trunk of a 

 human being; the BNA names are used throughout in its plates and descrip- 

 tions. That biologists find the BNA satisfactory is indicated by its use in 

 Professor J. B. Johnston's book, "The Anatomy of the Nervous System of 



