Wilder.] ^^^ [July 15, 



several writers who do not explicitly condemn tlie current toponomy : 

 Gegenbaur (A, 491), Mivart (A, 69), Cleland {1, 170), Rolleston (B, 33, 

 note), &c. 



Finally, the need of a radical change of base has been proclaimed in one 

 of the very strongholds of anthropotomy : — 



"Now that the more extended study of comparative anatomy and em- 

 bryonic development is largely applied to the elucidation of the human 

 structure, it is very desirable that descriptive terms should be sought 

 which may, without ambiguity, indicate position and relation in the 

 organism at once in man and animals. Such terms as cephalic and caudal, 

 dorsal and ventral, &c., are of this kind, and ought, whenever this may be 

 done consistently with sufficient clearness of description, to take the place 

 of those which are only applicable to the peculiar attitude of the human 

 body." — Quain, A, I, 6. 



This is certainly explicit as to the principle involved, and it is to be 

 hoped that later editions of this standard Human Anatomy may display its 

 practical application to the body of the work. 



How slender is the justification for retaining a toponomical vocabulary 

 based upon the relations of organisms to the surface of the earth, appears 

 more fully when we reflect that the assumed standard, for the higher ver- 

 tebrates at least, is man in his natural erect attitude ; yet that both man 

 and animals are more often examined and compared with the hacJc down- 

 ward, this being an attitude truly characteristic of only that infrequent 

 "subject," the sloth. 



As a single illustration of the logical inconsistencies into which we are 

 led by the use of the current toponomj^, take the series of possible designa- 

 tions of the direction of some vertebral spinous process which projects to- 

 ward the skin of the back at, or approximately at, a right angle with the 

 myelon. With man the direction in which it points is posterior, but with 

 a cat it is superior, while with an ape or a bird it is somewhere between the 

 two ; with all four, when on the dissecting table, it would be usually in- 

 ferior. Finally, with a flounder the corresponding direction would be 

 horizontal or sidewise. 



In short, to designate the locations of organs by the relations of animals 

 to the surface of the earth, which relation differs in nearly allied forms, 

 and varies with the same individual according to circumstances, is as far 

 from pliilosophical as it would be to define the place of a house or a tree by 

 reference to the planet Jupiter, or to assume that mankind naturally face 

 the rising sun, and hence to designate our right and left as the south and 

 north sides of the body. 



The present tendency of accurate anatomical description is to refer the 

 position or direction of all parts and organs to an imaginary plane dividing 

 the body into approximately equal right and left halves ; hence it is desira- 

 ble to designate this middle plane, or any line contained therein, by a 

 word which is at once significant, short, and capable of inflection. Dr. 

 Barclq-y proposed mesion, and mesial has been generally used ; but would 



