480 NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



branches, which are peculiar for their reddish colour and for 

 their softness; the latter quality has obtained for them the name 

 of Nervi Molles. They may be referred, by their position, to 

 three orders. The superior ascend to anastomose with the 

 pneumogastric, hypoglossal, and facial nerves, near their exit 

 from the cranium. The middle are two or three in number, 

 but immediately divide into many filaments, forming the caro- 

 tid plexus by assistance from the pneumogastric, glosso-pha- 

 ryngeal, and facial nerves. ^Some of the branches of this plex- 

 us descend behind the primitive carotid, at the place of its bi- 

 furcation, and accompany it to its origin, continually interlacing 

 with each other. Others surround, after the same manner, the 

 external carotid, and subdivide into a plexus for each of its 

 branches, so that very fine filaments may be traced along the 

 superior thyroidal, the lingual, facial, occipital, and temporal 

 arteries. These nerves are, for the most part, difficult to trace, 

 from their extreme tenuity. The primitive branches, from 

 which these plexuses come, are sometimes previously united 

 into a small ganglion, which serves as a common centre to all 

 these nervous irradiations. The third order of anterior branches 

 amounting to from four to six, come either from the ganglion 

 or from the sympathetic just below it. A cord formed by 

 their union, called the Superficial Cardiac Nerve, descends on 

 the external side of the primitive carotid, anastomosing with 

 filaments from the pneumogastric and from the descendens noni. 

 It gives small ramifications to the contiguous parts, as to the 

 pharynx, oesophagus, the sterno-hyoid and thyroid muscles. It 

 terminates in the lower part of the neck, by detaching anasto- 

 mosing branches to the branches of the recurrent nerve; some 

 of them also go along the inferior thyroid artery to the thy- 

 roid gland. What remains of it is lost in the middle cardiac 

 nerve; for it cannot be traced, in an insulated and distinct 

 manner, to the heart ; from which cause, its appellation is ob- 

 jectionable. 



2. The Middle Cervical Ganglion, placed intermediately to 

 the fifth and sixth cervical vertebras, upon the longus colii mus- 

 cle, is there concealed by the common carotid, the internal ju- 

 gular vein, and the pneumogastric nerve. It is sometimes de- 

 ficient: according to Meckel, in the proportion of once in three 

 times. In my own dissections I have always found it, though 



