April 21, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



573 



writer that there has been adequate recognition of the 

 terminological precepts and examples that occur in 

 the works of Professor Richard Owen, and the writer 

 takes this opportunity to express his constantly in- 

 creasing sense of obligation in this regard ; had space 

 permitted he would gladly have increased the num- 

 ber and length of the selections from Professor 

 Owen's writings which are embraced among the 

 ' Aphorisms respecting Nomenclature ' on pp. 520-522 

 of the article ' Anatomical Terminology.' " 



In this connection may appropriatelj^ be 

 mentioned two later but highly significant 

 British contributions toward a simplified 

 and international system of nomenclature. 



1. The Latin names for the encephalic 

 segments. — In the seventh edition of Quain's 

 'Anatomy', edited by William Sharpey, Al- 

 len Thompson and John Cleland, in Vol. 

 II., dated 1867, the five 'fundamental parts' 

 (corresponding to what I have called ' defini- 

 tive segments ') are ndkVLi&A. prosenceyhalon, 

 diencephalon, viesencephalon, epencephalon, and 

 metencephalon ; and in a foot-note these 

 terms are declared to be "adopted as appli- 

 cable to the principal secondary divisions 

 of the primordial medullary tube, and as 

 corresponding to the commonly received 

 names of the German embryologists, viz., 

 Vorderhirn, Zwischenhirn, Mittelhirn, Hinter- 

 hirn, and Nachldrn ; or their less-used Eng- 

 lish translations, viz., forebrain, interbrain, 

 midbrain, hindbrain, and afterbrain." 



Notwithstanding several public requests 

 for information as to the source of the Latin 

 segmental names, the historic facts recorded 

 in the above extract were ascertained by me 

 only within the past week ; I prefer to be- 

 lieve that they were unknown to the No- 

 menclatur Commission and to the Anatom- 

 ische Gesellschaft at the time of the selec- 

 tion and adoption of the Latin names for 

 the encephalic segments as given in the B. 

 N. A. Even, then, however, since the 

 same Latin terms were repeated in the sub- 

 .sequent editions of Quain (1877-1882), I 

 am compelled to regard the transference of 

 metencephalon from the ultimate segment to 



the penultimate, and its replacement by 

 myelencephalon, as constituting a violation of 

 scientific ethics that merits the severest rep- 

 robation, * 



2. Mononymic designations of the en- 

 cephalic cavities. — In August, 1882, wholly 

 unaware of my prior suggestion to the same 

 effect (Science, March, 1881), the late T. 

 Jefifery Parker, professor in Otago Univer- 

 sity, New Zealand, proposed compounds of 

 the Greek -/.oih'a, with the prepositions, etc., 

 already employed in the segmental names ; 

 e. g., mesocoele, prosoccele, etc. Our mutual 

 gratification and encouragement at the ap- 

 proximate coincidence led to a cordial cor- 

 respondence that continued until his death. 

 Besides the publications enumerated in the 

 Bibliography of ' Neural Terms, ' Parker 

 used celian compounds in two papers on the 

 Afteryx (1890 and 1892) and in the 'Text- 

 book of Zoology' by himself and Professor 

 Haswell (1897). 



XVIII. That, even in its earliest and cru- 

 dest form, the ' system'' sometimes called by my 

 name could fairly be characterized as ^generally 

 repulsive'' and as having 'not the slightest chance' 

 of general adoption. ' f — On this point it is 

 sufficient to introduce the following letter % 

 from Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose point 

 of view was at once that of the literary 

 critic and the experienced teacher of anat- 

 omy in a medical school : 



"Boston, May 3, 1881. 



" Deae Dr. Wilder : I have read carefully your 

 paper on Nomenclature. I entirely approve of it as 

 an attempt, an attempt which I hope will he partially 

 successful, for no such sweeping change is, I think, 

 ever adopted as a whole. But I am struck with the 



* The intrinsic merits of various segmental names 

 have been discussed by me in 'Neural Terms,' etc., 

 326-328, and in the Proceedings of this Association for 

 the ninth session, May, 1897, 28-29. 



t These phrases occur in the 'Minority Report.' 

 X As a whole or in part this notable document has 

 been printed previously in Science, May 28, 1881 ; in 

 'The Brain of the Cat, ' Amer. Pkilos. Soc., Proceedings, 

 XIX., p. 530, 1881 ; 'Anatomical Technology,' 1882, 

 p. 11 ; 'Neural Terms', p. 237. 



