110 J. GORDON WILSO^' 



fibers from the facial to the skin except in fishes for the innerva- 

 tion of special sense organs belonging to the gustatory or lateral 

 line system. Herrick has frequently asserted that there is no 

 proof that the geniculate ganglion ever sends general sensory 

 fibers to the skin; in all cases where general sensory fibers distribute 

 to the skin by branches of the facialis they either have a separate 

 root of their own (as in cyclostomes) or enter the facialis distal to 

 the geniculate ganglion by anastomosing branches from the gas- 

 serian ganglion of the trigeminus. 



2. The experimental results of Amabolino who after cutting the 

 n. facialis at the stylo-mastoid foramen found retrograde degener- 

 ation in the cells of the geniculate ganglion. These results do 

 not show as Hunt asserts that these fibers "are destined for the 

 cutaneous distribution of the facial to the external ear." It sim- 

 ply proves that the facial contains afferent fibers, which may be 

 and certainly some are nerves of deep sensation. 



3. Clinical observations: (a) in the loss of sensation accom- 

 panying facial paralysis; (b) in herpes oticus with paralysis of the 

 n. facialis. 



(a) Tests for anaesthesia in this area must necessarily be unsatis- 

 factory because of the very considerable overlapping of sensory 

 nerves. As a result of my own observations as well as from a 

 study of the cases quoted by Hunt I am convinced that such evi- 

 dence cannot give data accurate enough to decide the point at 

 issue. 



(b) The frequency of the association of herpes oticus with par- 

 alysis of the n. facialis and with auditory symptoms appears to 

 lend considerable weight to Hunt's hypothesis and cannot be 

 sunnnarily dismissed. Although herpes oticus is comparatively 

 rare yet Hunt has carefully collected a number of cases in which 

 this association is a marked feature. But as he points out facial 

 paralysis also occurs with herpes facialis and herpes occipito-col- 

 laris. He explains this by an associated inflammation of the 

 geniculate ganglion "based on the well recognized tendency of 

 this affection to produce inflammatory changes in a series of spinal 

 ganglia. The Gasserian, geniculate and upper cervical consti- 



