Notes from the Otago University Museum

Abstract

IX,—On the Nomenclature of the Brain and its Cavities IN working at the brain of the lower Vertebrata, the inconvenience of the received terminology of the cerebral cavities became so manifest, that I adopted the plan¹ of distinguishing each cavity by the simple expedient of placing before the syllable cæle (κο?λος, κοιλία) the prefix used for the corresponding division of the brain in the systematic nomenclature adopted in Quain's “Anatomy.” Thus, the entire cavity of the mid-brain of fishes, for which the usual names “aqueduct of Sylvius” or “iter a tertio ad quartum ventriculum” were unsuitable, became the mesocæle or cavity of the mesencephalon, the “lateral ventricles,” the prosocæles or cavities of the prosencephala, and so on. A similar but more thorough-going reform had been previously and independently proposed by Burt Wilder (Science, ii., 1881, pp. 122 and 133), and adopted in Wilder and Gage's “Anatomical Technology” (New York, 1882). Prof. Wilder was good enough to write to me on the subject, and, after some correspondence had passed between us, he published an article² giving a full account of the nomenclature he proposed to adopt, and stating that certain of his terms (e.g. neurocæle for the entire cavity of the cerebro-spinal axis, and encephalocæle for the entire system of brain-cavities) had been proposed by me.