ON THE VERTEBRATE SKELETON. l7l 



To substitute names for phrases is not only allowable, but I believe it to be 

 indispensable to the right progress of anatomy ; but such names must be arbi- 

 trary, or, at least, should have no other signification than the homological one, 

 if anatomy, as the science of the structure of all animals, is to enjoy the inesti- 

 mable benefit of a steady and universal nomenclature. I am far from being in- 

 sensible to the advantages which other sciences have derived from revolutions 

 in their technical language ; but experience has also demonstrated attendant 

 evils ; and these, it is to be feared, would preponderate in the case of anatomy, 

 on account of the peculiar character of its origin, and the fact of its cultivators 

 being for the most part introduced to the science through the portal of anthro- 

 potomy. So long, likewise, as due deference continues to be paid to the deep 

 and vital importance of the practical applications of the parent science in 

 medicine and surgery, it will be in vain for any man to expect that his sole 

 authority would suffice for the general reception of an entirely new nomen- 

 clature, however philosophically devised or clearly enunciative of the highest 

 and most comprehensive truths of the science at the time of its formation. 



After maturely considering this subject in its various relations, I have ar- 

 rived at the conviction that the best interests of anatomical science will be 

 consulted by basing the nomenclature applicable to the vertebrate subking- 

 dom upon the terms and phrases in which the great anthropotomists of the 

 16th, 17th and 18th centuries have communicated to us the fruits of their 

 immortal labours. For it is only on this firm foundation that we may hope 

 to avoid that ceaseless change of terms which follows the device of a syste- 

 matic nomenclature significant of a given progress and result of scientific 

 research. But the names of the parts of the vertebrate animals so based on 

 or deduced from the language of anthropotomy must divest themselves of 

 their original descriptive signification, and must stand simply and arbitra- 

 rily as the signs of such parts, or at least with the sole additional meaning 

 of indicating the relation of the part in the lower animal to its namesake or 

 homologue in Man. It is an old maxim accepted by the best logicians, that 

 no name is so good as that which signifies the total idea or whole subject, 

 without calling prominently to mind any one particular quality, which is 

 thereby apt to be deemed, undeservedly, more essential than the rest. 



The chief improvement which the language of anatomy, based upon that 

 of anthropotomy, must receive in order to do its requisite duty, is the substi- 

 tution of ' names ' for ' phrases ' and ' definitions ' ; and this is less a change 

 of nomenclature than the giving to anatomy what it did not before possess, 

 but which is absolutely requisite to express briefly and clearly, and without 

 periphrasis, propositions respecting the parts of animal bodies. Such names 

 should be derived from a universal or dead language, and when anglicized, 

 or translated into other modern equivalents, ought to be capable of being 

 inflected adjectively. 



A few examples will suffice to show how greatly the advantage of such 

 names preponderates over the trouble of substituting them in the memory 

 for the definitions which previously signified the ideas. 



In the classical Anthropotomy of Soemmering, a well-defined part of the 

 skull, which is a distinct bone in the human embryo, and permanently so in 

 all cold-blooded Vertebrata, is called " pars occipitalis stricte sic dicta partis 

 occipitalis ossis spheno-occipitalis*." Monro, in his justly-esteemed treatise 

 ' On the Human Bones f,' defines the same bone as ''• all the part of the (oc- 

 cipital) bone above the great foramen." In the ' Elements of Anatomy,' by 

 Dr. QuainJ, a work of repute for its clearness and minuteness of detail, the 



* De Corporis Huraani Fabrica, 1794, t. i. p. 162. f Kirhy's edition, 8vo, 1820, p. 76. 

 + Elements of Descriptive and Practical Anatomy, 8vo, 1828, p. 50. 



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