proposal of comprehending, in the name of a disease, a summary of its elementary symptoms, a little reflection upon the number of these that usually enter into a definition will suffice to shew how hopeless an undertaking it would be to attempt to construct out of them any other kind of names than those sesquipedalian terms which all nosologists concur in condemning, at least when employed by others.

But whilst such have been the temptations to the substitution of new nosological designations for the names by which diseases have been recognised in former times, the inconveniences that have resulted from the practice have been by no means inconsiderable. Some of these inconveniences seem to have been experienced or anticipated at a very early period of medical science. The passion for changing the usual language of medicine called forth, on several occasions, the indignant rebuke of Galen, particularly in his treatise on Dyspnoea, in reference to the terms employed by some physicians of his own times to designate the simple diversities of difficult respiration; and in his treatise on the Differences of Pulses, he derides, with all the arrogant superiority of a Greek, the barbaric terms which Archigenes had proposed to apply to the eight qualities of the Pulse which he was disposed to recognise.

Sauvages, in his original sketch of his Nosological System, insists on the inexpediency of abandoning, except when it is unavoidable, the names of diseases

putrid fever; and that, unquestionably, these new names will, in due time, be replaced by others." Considerations sur la Nosologie, &c. Paris, 1802.

received and adopted by the ancients, or of substituting new ones in their place, without an extreme necessity; for words, he remarks, are good only in respect of their signification. "I have not chosen,” says he, "to take upon myself to give new names to diseases; and I have preferred the circumspection of Ray, Plumier, Winslow, Linnæus, and Artedi, to an exactness which might have been regarded as too bold." At the same time he admits that it always has been, and always will be permitted to give new names to new diseases, and to select the best out of those which are in use. Accordingly, he specifies the considerations by which he had been himself influenced in his choice of the names of diseases; as not the least important of which may be mentioned his remark that such names of genera and species as indicate the proximate cause, in place of the leading symptom, are liable to lead into error. "If the employment of such names were admitted," he observes, "new names of diseases would be required whenever a new hypothesis is started. Though the doctrine of proximate causes be subject to changes, the nomenclature of diseases ought to be invariable." These views on nosological nomenclature were afterwards more fully expounded by Sauvages in the Prolegomena to his Methodical Nosology. (§. 93, &c.)

Dr Cullen, also, was strongly impressed with the conviction that the nomenclature of diseases, confirmed by long use, ought not to be changed without very urgent reasons.

he,

"In the attempts I have made towards a method," says "I have nowhere introduced one single new name of a

disease, but have adopted names which had been employed by one or other of the systematics before me. I found it absolutely necessary, indeed, to make a choice, and upon many occasions I have not taken the name which was formerly the most common; and in other instances, where I have adopted names, I am not quite satisfied that they are the most proper; but rather than occasion any sort of confusion by new names, I have avoided every thing of that kind."

This reserve on the part of Sauvages and of Cullen has not been followed in all instances by other nosologists. Dr Cullen complains of Linnæus that he had frequently changed medical nomenclature without any urgent necessity; and of Vogel that he had disfigured nosology by the introduction of new, frivolous, and inappropriate appellations. Dr Mason Good says of the nosological system of Ploucquet, that "it is singularly distinguished by the author's fondness for long crabbed words ;" and alleges that "Pinel has betrayed singular itch for changing established terms, which, in many cases, require no change whatever; and superseding them by others which are neither more true to correct theory, nor more euphonous to a correct ear." Dr Mason Good himself, in professing the correction and simplification of nosological nomenclature to be one of the great objects of his system of nosology, has explained, with much erudition, the general rules by

"New terms," as has been observed by a statesman who was equally distinguished by his knowledge of literature and philosophy (the late Sir James Mackintosh), " are generally the easy resource of the unskilful or the indolent, and often a characteristic mark of writers who neither know nor love their own language." (Edin. Review, vol. xxvii. p. 192.)

which he has been guided. But however specious these may appear when considered in themselves, no one who has attempted to make use of that work for the purposes of study or of instruction can have failed to feel, in the multitude of names employed in it which are not used by any other authors, at least of modern date, a serious drawback on any advantages it may possess in the correctness of the principles on which its nomenclature is founded. Dr Good, however, seems to have been aware of the great inconvenience which results from incorporating particular pathological doctrines in the language and nomenclature of diseases, and he animadverts in severe terms on the following up the coinage of new systems by the coinage of new terms, as one source of imperfection and perplexity in Nosology. "This," says he," has been a very ample and inveterate medium of error, and one which has not merely run through our nomenclature, but through our reasonings-insomuch, that through its prolific influence, the language of medicine has become a curious mosaic of the chief speculations of ancient and modern times." (Prelim. Diss. p. 1.)

It is not perhaps possible to assign a better reason for adhering to the names of diseases given to them by the ancients than has been done by the accurate and philosophical Baglivi. "The moderns," says he, "ought not to be opposed to the ancients, but, as far as is possible, to be joined with them in perpetual alliance. For what can be more absurd than when they agree in fact, to make them disagree in words. This passion for inventing new terms retards, in a wonderful degree, the progress of the tyro, and involves him in difficulty

and doubt. As respects patients, it is of little matter to them whether you designate the effects of disease, and the elements of the living body, by the less polished terms of the ancients, provided you have a perfect knowledge of the true principles of treatment, so that your words may pass into facts, and the events correspond with your predictions."

There is one circumstance which seems to have been very much overlooked by those who have occupied themselves with the reform of nosological nomenclature, viz. that many of those diseases which received generic appellations from the ancients, may proceed from different internal morbid conditions, as in the case of cynanche, of apoplexy, of ileus, of jaundice, &c., and that, to distinguish between these different forms of the same nosological disease, it is sufficient to annex a specific to the generic appellation, without inventing an entirely new name for each distinct form which we may be disposed to recognise. This principle was well understood by Sauvages, who remarks, "that to each genus there should be attached one name, and that as simple as possible; and each species of that genus should be designated, not by the generic name only, but also by an epithet, or specific name, added to it. The fewer the generic names or genera, the more easily are they retained and understood. But if as many genera as species be formed, then they are multiplied without necessity, and to the great injury of science, for medical nomenclature falls back to its original chaos, and all method is useless."

Besides giving a special definition of each particular disease, and assigning to each a peculiar appellation,