506 
REVIEW 
plan, that could be used in common by the anthropotomist, the 
veterinary anatomist and the comparative anatomist, and by those 
of all nations. No perfect system of this kind is to be expected ; 
nevertheless such an approximation to this may be secured as will 
greatly facilitate teaching and study by making every statement 
cdear, definite and easily apprehended, and at the same time devoid 
of implications which will be misleading when we come to study 
the same parts in different animals. 
Without presuming to endorse all that the authors have 
proposed in this direction, we hail much of it as a most important 
advance on old methods, and trust that the good work in this 
direction will not cease until something like a rational nomencla 
ture shall have been adopted. The following may be particularly 
noted as illustrating the direction the authors have taken : Instead 
of the superior and inferior of man and the corresponding anterior 
and posterior of animals, they adopt the words cephalic and caudal 
in describing the positions, parts and aspects of organs. These 
have precisely the same significance to man and animal and are 
equally intelligible to the scientists and students ot all tongues. 
The objection that the same words are used in a specific sense for 
the structures of the head and tail respectively could be easily 
obviated, we would suggest, by using other distinctive terms for 
these, e. g. use the term coccygeal for the structures proper of the 
tail. Regarding relations in another direction, the terms dorsal and 
ventral at once do away with the antiquity attaching to superior 
and inferior , etc. All ambiguity may be avoided, as the authors 
point out, by adopting for the term dorsal that of thoracic in 
describing the vertebrae of the back. Then as regards a position, 
central or lateral as regards the body, the term meson is proposed 
for the central line, while mesal will imply a position towards the 
median line, and the generic lateral , and the more specific dextral 
and sinistral imply position to one side of the median line. 
Again, to imply position or relation superficial or deep we find 
the words ectal and eutal which give give a definite idea not to he 
obtained from inner and outer now in common use. In each case 
the adverbial form secured by changing the terminal 1 into d im¬ 
plies a direction as specific. 
