124 



SCIENCE. 



Apparently some German scientists have determined 

 upon a negative reply to this inquiry, and their papers, 

 even those of strictly scientific nature, teem with verna- 

 cular words, and with compounds thereof fearfully and 

 wonderfully made. 



If this kind of verbifaction be tolerable under any cir- 

 cumstances, it certainly would be justified by the extent 

 and importance of the contributions to knowledge which 

 appear first in the German scientific periodicals. 



Upon this point, however, 1 can do no better than to 

 quote the very recent judgment of one who is at the 

 same time an investigator, a promoter of " the diffusion 

 of knowledge," and an admirer of the methods and re- 

 sults of German science: 



" Every art is full of conceptions which are peculiar to 

 itself ; and, as the use of language is to convey our con- 

 ceptions to one another, language must supply signs for 

 those conceptions. Either existing signs may be combined 

 in loose and cumbrous paraphrases, or new signs, having a 

 well-understood and definite signification, may be invented. 

 Science is cosmopolitan, and the difficulties of the study 

 of zoology would be prodigiously increased if zoologists of 

 different nationalities used different technical terms for the 

 same thing. They need a universal language ; and it has 

 been found convenient that the language shall be Latin in 

 form, and Latin or Greek in derivation." — Huxley, C, 14. 



Unless it can be shown that there is an essential dis- 

 tinction between the methods of designating entire organ- 

 isms, and the parts thereof, the foregoing passages should 

 silence the objections of those who would have us retain a 

 vocabulary as vague as was that of chemistry in the days 

 of lime, vitriol and copperas — a vocabulary which com- 

 bines the ponderous stiffness of the cloister with the puer- 

 ile vagueness of the nursery. 



Tuberculum bigemimim anterius must give way to 

 lobi optici, or some even shorter term ; while trachea 

 must take the place of windpipe, weasand, luft-rohre and 

 conduit cerien. Life is too short to spend in digging for 

 truth with a long-handled shovel when a trowel will serve 

 the purpose ; nor is it becoming that any nation, however 

 wise and great, should ask all the rest to take their intel- 

 lectual food with chop-sticks of its peculiar pattern. 



That there is no inherent obstacle to the employment of 

 technical terms of classical derivation is shown by the 

 readiness with which such words as petroleum and phyl- 

 loxera have become domesticated along with the objects 

 which they represent. There are scores of animals, like 

 the Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, and Ichneumon, for 

 which there are no English vernacular names ; while the 

 youngest student of botany accepts Nepal tea, Anemone, 

 and even Rhododendron without difficulty or hesitation. 

 Homely as it sounds, stomach is a strictly classical word, 

 and the use of caul for omentum, or sweetbread for pan- 

 creas, would surprise a class in elementary physiology. 



Even the late Jeffries Wyman, who saw no objection to 

 forearm, and used near rather than proximal for the 

 first row of carpalia, accepted intcrmembral as "good," 

 and freely employed, if indeed he did not originate, the 

 adjective pretibial, which probably would have come into 

 general use had not the bone in question proved to be 

 the homologue of the intermedium. — (Morse, 18, 13). 



THE LIMITS OF TERMINOLOGICAL CHANGE. 



As has been stated already, the modifications here pro- 

 posed are intended to provide for what seem to be actual 

 necessities, irrespective of purely theoretical considera- 

 tions, and of any desire for a perfectly uniform and con- 

 sistent terminology. It may be well, however, to specify 

 certain general limitations to changes of anatomical nomen- 

 clature. 



Priority is practically of little moment in respect to the 

 names of organs, since it is usually difficult to ascertain 

 when and by whom they were first applied. An example 

 of this is afforded by the phrase foramen of Monro, 

 (Wilder, 3;. Nor, indeed, has priority always been held 



sacred in systematic zoology. Owen's " Deinosaurians " 

 was proposed nine years later than von Meyer's " Pachy- 

 poda ;" yet, as stated by Huxley (108, 33), it has been 

 retained, notwithstanding the small size of some members 

 of the group. 



Etymological appropriateness is sometimes disre- 

 regarded, as in the case just mentioned, and in the more 

 familiar names Reptiles, Vertebrates, Edentat<s, &c. 

 Prof. Huxley has recently expressed the common sense view 

 of the matter as follows : 



" If well understood terms which have acquired a definite 

 scientific connotation are to be changed whenever ad- 

 vancing knowledge renders them etymologically inappro- 

 priate, the nomenclature of taxonomy will before long be- 

 come hopelessly burdened." (B, 751.) 



So, too, the names of organs have sometimes been given 

 in reference to some variable or unessential character, or 

 have even represented 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 cubitum, proposed 

 by me in 1872 (10, 21) as the technical equivalent of fore- 

 arm, is both shorter than antebrachium, and more in 

 accordance with its classical employment ; but the latter 

 word seems to be more generally preferred, and I am 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. 



MESON, ITS DERIVATIVES AND CORRELATIVES. 



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 desirable to desig- 

 nate this middle plane, or any line contained therein, 

 by a word which is at once significant, short, and capable 

 of inflection. Dr. Barclay proposed mesion, and mesial 

 has been generally used ; but would it not be better to 

 adopt the very term employed by the Greeks to signify the 

 middle, meson, to jdkaov, equivalent to the more ponderous 

 Latin meditullium ? The corresponding adjective is 

 mesal, and the adverb mesad, while in combination it be- 

 comes meso. 



The following general terms were also proposed by Bar- 

 clay, and have been more or less systematically employed 

 by Owen, Huxley and others : Dorsal, ventral, dextral 

 sinistral, lateral, with the corresponding adverbial forms 

 dorsad, etc. Should the alleged correspondence of the 

 ventral region of the vertebrate with the tergal region of 

 the arthropod prove to be one of true homology, it may be 

 desirable in time to discard dorsal and ventral for more 

 suitable terms, but for the present, if on practical grounds 

 alone, it seems well to retain them. 



CEPHALIC AND CAUDAL. 



Barclay proposed atlantal and sacral for the designa- 

 tion of the position of parts lying toward the head or the 

 tail in reference to an imaginary plane dividing the trunk 

 at the middle of its length. But these terms were not ap- 

 plicable to parts beyond the atlas and the sacrum, so that 

 new words were applied to the regions of the head. Per- 

 haps this needless complication has hindered the general 

 adoption of Barclay's nomenclature notwithstanding its 

 many admirable features. At any rate, cephalic and cau- 

 dal are much more acceptable terms, and are practically 

 unobjectionable, although certain theoretical difficulties 

 readily suggest themselves. 



Proximal and distal, central and peripheral are in 

 common use, and the general employment of their inflec- 

 tions and derivatives is only a question of time. 



