LIMITS OF TERMINOLOGICAL CHANGE. 19 



some variable or unessential character, or have even conveyed an erroneous 

 idea ; yet no one now thinks of discarding either rectum, arteria, or carotid. 

 Sometimes even brevity and etymological accuracy yield to established 

 usage. The word c!<5i^Mm, proposed by the senior author in 1873 (10, 31) 

 as the technical equivalent of fore-arm, is both shorter than antehrachium, 

 and more in accordance with its classical employment ; but the latter word 

 seems to be more generally preferred, and we are ready to accept it. 



In another case, even though a new term has not yet come into general 

 use, a special vitality may be imparted to it by the authority of those who 

 may have adopted it. No marked or persistent disfavor is likely to be shown 

 to terms which, like myelon, can claim Prof. Owen as father, and find a god- 

 father in Prof. Huxley. 



Even Milne-Edwards, while intimating (A, XI, 334) that anatomical 

 nomenclature has been created in suflScient perfection, frankly admits the 

 superiority of myelon over moelle epinihre. 



§ 33. Some Inconsistencies. — It will be noted (Pig. 6) that we have 

 refrained from giving technical names to the membral arthra (joints) or 

 have merely added them in parentheses. 



This is partly because the need of names for parts so familiar seems less 

 urgent than in the case of some other organs. Still, it is certainly undesir- 

 able that the carpo-metacarpal arthron should be called wrist in man, and 

 Icnee in the horse, and the chief cause of our inconsistency in this respect 

 has been our inability to decide upon the relative merits of the various 

 names which might be applied. The names suggested are those which were 

 proposed by the senior author in 1871 (10, 31-34) ; but they do not appear 

 to have been adopted to any considerable extent. 



Strict logical consistency, also, would impel us to substitute entoscapular 

 for subscapular in the designation of a fossa and muscle of the scapula ; so 

 too, supraspinous, siipraspinatus, infraspinous, and infraspinatus, should 

 be prmspinatus, etc.; notwithstanding the demands of consistency and 

 logic, and the example of Owen (A, III, 44), we decline to interfere with 

 these brief and old-established titles of well-known parts. 



Further information concerning the changes in the names of organs will be given in 

 the Index and in the Lists and Tables of names in the several chapters. 



It will be noted, also, that of the two Latin names for heart we have 

 adopted the longer cardia, rather than the shorter cor. This is because 

 derivatives and compounds of the former are by far the more numerous and 

 familiar. Hence the selection is really in accordance with the more general 

 principle that all measures of reform should have regard to the practicability 

 as well as the abstract suitability of a change. 



The case with stomach is less simple; although the word is directly 

 derived from the Greek arofiaxog, it is practically a vernacular term, while 



