328 MAMMALIAN ALVEOLINGUAL SALIVARY AREA 



partially escaping the confinement of the muscle, its extremity is in 

 contact with the submaxillary at, and dorsal to, its hilus and to a slight 

 degree on its mesal surface. In cases in which the submaxillary is 

 cervical or thoracic, the greater sublingual may also extend beyond the 

 digastric and retain its relation to the submaxillary. Frequently this 

 element is of less development, entirely supramylohyoid or even pre- 

 hngual in situation. It may be absent (rabbit, Chievitz), or incon- 

 stant (man). Its orifice is usually close to that of the subma.xillary 

 on its lateral aspect, or shghtly caudal to it. In Macropas giganteus 

 (Silvester) it is a full centimeter caudad of the orifice of the larger 

 gland. It sometimes opens into the submaxillary duct, a condition 

 not rare in primates (Huntington), and may be variable in this respect 

 (man). 



Ranvier confused the problem of the relations of sublinguales minores 

 and subungualis major, by arbitrarily establishing the lingual nerve as 

 a line of demarcation between the two, defining the former as prehngual 

 in position, the latter as retroHngual (hence the name). This division 

 led him to interpret the Bartholinian element (sublingualis major) as an 

 hypertrophied Rivinian gland, notwithstanding the fact that Cliievitz 

 had already described its development both in man and in the pig, and 

 had demonstrated beyond peradventure that it is not of this nature. 

 What doubt might reasonably still exist as to its independence could 

 only concern the nature of its relation to the submaxillary (vide infra). 

 Further, as Zumstein pointed out, Ranvier's position is untenable 

 both from the known existence of intermediate forms of the sublingua- 

 lis major, and from the fact that such a landmark as the Ungual nerve 

 could only be an index of the degree of development of the glands in 

 question. For it is obxnous that the product of a sagittally directed 

 sprout such as that of the sublinguahs major will terminate in front of, 

 at, or behind a given transverse level according as it is of small, 

 moderate, or large development. In man the element is small and 

 prehngual; the same is true of many primates (Huntington). The 

 situation of the fundus at the level of the Ungual nerve is, from the 

 smaUness of the landmark, necessarily less frequent than the prehngual 

 and retrolingual positions, which from their greater extent permit a 

 wider degree of variation within their limits. The fundus is at this 

 level in Zalophus (Carmalt, Silvester) ; the extension of a gland of 



