574 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 225. 



reasonableness of the system of changes which you 

 propose, and the fitness of many of the special terms 

 you have suggested. 



"The last thing an old teacher wants is, as you 

 know full well, a new set of terms for a familiar set 

 of objects. It is hard instructing ancient canine in- 

 dividuals in new devices. It is hard teaching old 

 professors new tricks. So my approbation of your 

 attempt is a tic vos non vobis case so far as I am con- 

 cerned. 



" What you have to do is to keep agitating the sub- 

 ject ; to go on training your students to the new terms, 

 some of which you or others will doubtless see reasons 

 for changing ; to improve as far as possible, fill up 

 blanks, perhaps get up a small manual in which the 

 new terms shall be practically applied, and have faith 

 that sooner or later the best part of your innovations 

 will find their way into scientific use. The plan is 

 an excellent one ; it is a new garment which will fit 

 Science well, if that capricious and fantastic and old- 

 fashioned dressing lady can only be induced to try it 

 on. 



"Always very truly yours, 



" Oliver Wendell Holmes." 



XIX. That, at the present stage of the sub- 

 ject, it is possible for any individual, hoivever 

 impartial and well informed, to wholly avert the 

 possibility of misapprehension or even injustice, in 

 attempting to indicate the attitude of living anat- 

 omists toward the simplified nomenclature. — My 

 impartiality may perhaps be challenged, 

 but I am at least familiar with current lit- 

 erature in this respect ; moreover, since 

 1880 I have preserved all letters in which 

 the matter is considered. Probably no one 

 agrees with me absolutely and in every re- 

 spect. On the other hand, even some frankly 

 avowed opponents now assent to what they 

 would have regarded as quite heretical a 

 few years ago.* 



XX. That whatever misapprehension may ex- 

 ist in this country or abroad as to the degree in 

 ivhich the terms or principles advocated by me are 

 indorsed by others can he justly ascribed to either 

 unfounded declarations or intimations on my part, 

 or to the omission of definite efforts to avert or 



* In the verbal presentation of a paper at this 

 meeting Professor Dwight designated the costiferous 

 vertebrae as thoracic rather than dorsal, with a consist- 

 ency both gratifying and encouraging. 



remove such misapprehension. — The enumera- 

 tion of the conditions that led to the prepa- 

 ration of ' Neural Terms ' included (p. 217) 

 the following sentence : " I particularly de- 

 sire to free the committees, their individual 

 members, and the associations which they 

 represent, from responsibilities not yet as- 

 sumed by them." More or less explicit and 

 emphatic affirmations to the same effect oc- 

 cur on pp. 273, 295, 299 and 301.* 



XXI. That ' most scholars are repelled by ' my 

 'fantastic terms and defects of literary form.'' — 

 This assertion occurs in the ' review ' (No. 

 6), and presumably refers to the 'system' 

 in its present or recent state. The position 

 taken is apparently impregnable, since for 

 every one who has declared his adhesion 

 there might be named a score who have said 

 nothing about it. Seriously, however, it is 

 not easy to discuss such a proposition with- 

 out adducing evidence that might fairly be 

 challenged by one side or the other. At 

 any rate, in the present connection I shall 

 omit my more or less intimate friends and 

 correspondents, living and dead ; Harrison 

 Allen, W. R. Birdsall, Oliver Wendell 

 Holmes, Joseph Leidy, and E. C. Seguin ; 

 William Browning, Joseph Collins, Elliott 

 Coues, H. H. Donaldson, F. H. Gerrish, 



*At the meeting of the American Medical Associa- 

 tion in Philadelphia, June, 1897, the Section on Neu- 

 rology and Medical Jurisprudence adopted the follow- 

 ing resolution, recommended by the Committee on the 

 Address of the Chairman, W. J. Herdman : 



''Resolved, That the Section of Neurology and 

 Medical Jurisprudence endorse the neural terms 

 adopted by the American Neurological Association, 

 the Association of American Anatomists, and the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 and so far as practical recommend their use in the 

 work of the section. 



C. K. Mills, 

 C. H. Hughes, 

 Harold N. Moyer." 



Since the action above recorded was taken in June, 

 1897, it does not, of course, apply to the subsequent 

 adoptions by this Association at the tenth and eleventh 

 sessions ; Dec, 1897, and Dec, 1898. 



