Burt Green Wilder (August 11, 1841 – January 21, 1925) was an American

comparative anatomist Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species). The science began in the classical era, continuing in t ...

Biography

Burton Green Wilder was born in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

to David and Celia Colton Wilder. He graduated at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

(

Lawrence Scientific School The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering education, engineering school within Harvard University's Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in eng ...

, 1862; medical department, 1866). During part of the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

he served as surgeon of the Fifty-fifth (Negro) Massachusetts Infantry. From 1867 to his retirement in 1910 he was

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

neurology Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...

and

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

zoölogy at Cornell. He was elected as a member to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 1878. In 1885 he was president of the

American Neurological Association The American Neurological Association (ANA) is a professional society of academic neurologists and neuroscientists devoted to advancing the goals of academic neurology; to training and educating neurologists and other physicians in the neurologic ...

and in 1898 of the Association of American Anatomists. He was a member of the American Anthropometric Society, but quit in 1891 due to their restrictions that all brains be stored in Philadelphia. While at Cornell, Wilder began what would become the Wilder Brain Collection. He died at his home in

Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts Chestnut Hill is a wealthy New England village located west of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is best known for being home to Boston College and a section of the Boston Marathon route. Like all Massachusetts villages, Ch ...

on January 21, 1925. His own brain was removed from his corpse and added to the collection. Notably, the earliest known instance of the term

neuron A neuron (American English), neurone (British English), or nerve cell, is an membrane potential#Cell excitability, excitable cell (biology), cell that fires electric signals called action potentials across a neural network (biology), neural net ...

was in 1884, when Wilder used the word to describe the cerebrospinal axis (also known as the

Central Nervous System The central nervous system (CNS) is the part of the nervous system consisting primarily of the brain, spinal cord and retina. The CNS is so named because the brain integrates the received information and coordinates and influences the activity o ...

). The term was popularized, and given its more modern meaning, by Heinrich Waldeyer in 1891. Among his writings are: *''What Young People Should Know'' (1874) *''Anatomical Technology'' (1882), with Gage *''Physiology Practicums'' (second edition, 1895) A species of Brazilian snake, ''

Liotyphlops wilderi ''Liotyphlops wilderi'', also known as Wilder's blind snake, is a species of snake in the family Anomalepididae. McDiarmid RW, Campbell JA, Touré T (1999). ''Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, Volume 1''. Washin ...

'', is named in his honor.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Wilder", p. 285).

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilder, Burt Green 1841 births 1925 deaths American science writers Cornell University faculty People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War Harvard Medical School alumni Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni Members of the American Anthropometric Society Union army surgeons Members of the American Philosophical Society