April 21, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



571 



employment is to be regarded, but should not over- 

 hear all other considerations. (4) Of two terras 

 equally acceptable in other respects, to select the 

 shorter. (5) Preference for names of general appli- 

 cation over those which have an exclusive application 

 to man or the other primates. (6) To convert some 

 compound terms into simple ones, either by dropping 

 unessential words or by the substitution of prefixes 

 for adjectives. (7) For terms of position, to discard 

 all which refer to the horizon or to the natural atti- 

 tude of man, and to adopt those which refer to the 

 longitudinal axis of the vertebrate body. (S) For 

 terms of relative position and direction, to employ 

 those used for position with the termination ad. 



"E. Tlie Paper Will Indicate: (1) The terms pro- 

 posed and their abbreviations. (2) The principal 

 synonyms. (3) The originators of the terms and 

 synonyms and the dates of their first employment) 

 so far as ascertained. (4) The terms which should be 

 wholly discarded. (5) The new terms for new parts ^ 

 the new terms for parts already known, the new 

 forms of old terms. (6) Tlie subordination of parts 

 to wholes by differences in the kinds of type." 



There were present Harrison Allen, Simon 

 H. Gage, Charles vS. Minot and probably 

 other members of this Association ; the sur- 

 vivors will recall that on cloth sheets were 

 written in parallel columns certain names in 

 common use, together with those which were 

 proposed to rejjlace them. Amongst these 

 were pons for ' pons Varolii;' insula for 'in- 

 sula Reillii ;' thalamus for ' thalamus opti- 

 cus ;' callosum and striatum for ' corpus qal- 

 losum ' and ' corpus striatum ;' prceeommis- 

 sura for ' commissura anterior ;' myelon for 

 ' medulla spinalis,' and cormi dorsale, for 

 ' cornu posterius. ' This paper constituted 

 the proton (the primordium, or ' Anlage,' if 

 you prefer) of my own subsequent contribu- 

 tions, and likewise, so far as I knew at the 

 time, of the simplified nomenclature in 

 America. 



Proud as I am of these early propositions, 

 and glad as I should be if they and their 

 subsequent elaborations had been at once 

 unprecedented and sufficient, nevertheless 

 truth, justice and the peculiar conditions 

 now confronting us alike impel me upon 

 this occasion to insist even more distinctly 



than hitherto upon the extent to which the 

 ideas and even the specific terms had been 

 anticipated by four other anatomists in this 

 country and in England. 



Already in the spring of 1880, although 

 quite unknown to me, there had been pub- 

 lished a paper by E. C. Spitzka, ' The 

 Central Tubular Gray ' (Journal of Nervous 

 and Mental Disease, April, 1880), containing 

 (p. 75, note) the following pregnant para- 

 graph : 



' ' It would add much to the clearness of our ter- 

 minology, in my opinion, if the adjectives anterior 

 and posterior were to be discarded. Physiologists 

 and anatomists are so often forced to deal with the 

 nerve axes of lower animals, in whom what is with 

 man the anterior root becomes interior, and what is 

 in the former posterior becomes superior, that they 

 have either been confused themselves or have written 

 confusedly, or finally have, to avoid all misunder- 

 standing, utilized the terms applicable to man alone 

 also for quadrupeds. The nervous axis, however, oc- 

 cupies one definite position, which should determine 

 the topographical designations. What in man is the 

 anterior, and in quadrupeds the inferior, root or cornu 

 is always ventral ; while what in the former is poste- 

 rior, and the latter superior, is always doi'sal. The 

 present treatise is not the proper place for renovating 

 nomenclature, but I have thought it well to call at- 

 tention to the matter in passing, and in anticipation of 

 a xoork on comparative neural morphology which I have 

 in preparation." 



The concluding words are italicized by 

 me in order that there may be the more 

 fully appreciated the generosity, indeed 

 self-abnegation, exhibited in Dr. Spitzka's 

 commentary* upon my longer paperf of the 

 following year : 



"It is with mingled pleasure and profit that I 

 have read the very suggestive paper on cerebral no- 

 menclature contributed to your last issues by Profes- 

 sor Wilder. Some of the suggestions which he has 

 made have been latent in my own mind for years, 



* Letter on nomenclature. Science, April 9, 1881. 

 Also in Jour. Nerv. and Mental Dis., July, 1881, 661- 

 662. 



t A partial revision of anatomical nomenclature, 

 with especial reference to that of the brain. Science, 

 II., 1881, pp. 122-126, 133-138, March. Also Jour. 

 Nero, and Mental. Dis., July, 1881, 652-661. 



