AUTHORS’ ABSTRACT OF THIS PAPER ISSUED 
BY THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICE MAY 11 
THE SUPERIOR CERVICAL GANGLION AND THE 
CERVICAL PORTION OF THE SYMPATHETIC 
TRUNK 
S. W. RANSON AND P. R. BILLINGSLEY 
From the Anatomical Laboratory of Northwestern University Medical School! 
FIFTEEN FIGURES 
4 
In this paper we shall report observations on the superior cervi- 
cal ganglion and the nerves immediately associated with it. 
But in dealing with the literature it has been necesssary to treat 
the subject in a somewhat broader way and to set forth what is 
known concerning the sympathetic ganglia in general. 
The general plan of the cephalic end of the sympathetic trunk, 
according to the evidence obtained by the nicotine and degenera- 
tion methods, is as follows: The trunk below the superior cervical 
ganglion consists of fibers ascending to end in that ganglion 
(fig. 1). These are preganglionic fibers, the axons of cells located 
in the intermediolateral cell column of the spinal cord, which 
have entered the trunk through the upper thoracic white rami and 
are ascending to the ganglion. Having reached the superior 
cervical ganglion, these fibers end in synapses with the postgan- 
glionic neurones, whose cell bodies are located there, and to which 
belong the postganglionic fibers that leave this ganglion through 
its various branches of distribution. Those branches which run 
to the internal carotid artery, known collectively as the internal 
carotid nerve and forming the internal carotid plexus, carry 
postganglionic fibers which are distributed to the eyeball, lacrimal 
gland, mucous membrane of the nose, mouth, and pharynx and 
many of the blood-vessels of the head. The fibers to the salivary 
glands run by way of the branch to the external carotid artery 
1 Contribution No. 54, February 15, 1918. 
313 
