EIGHTH PAIR OF NERVES. 499 



Here it gives off a twig to the back of the ear and head called 

 the posterior auricular, one to the digastric and one to the 

 stylo-hyoideus muscles. It perforates the gland after sending 

 filaments to it, and then divides into branches which are 

 arranged in such a manner that they constitute what has been 

 called the Pes Anserinus. 



To describe the various branches in this expansion would 

 be more laborious than useful. Some of them called tempero- 

 facial are spread upon the temple and the upper part of the 

 side of the head, and unite with the supra-orbitar branches of 

 the ophthalmic nerve. Some pass above and below the eye, 

 and are distributed to the orbicularis muscle, and communicate 

 with nervous twigs that pass through foramina in the malar 

 bone, &tc. Some large branches named facial pass trans- 

 versely. These cross the masseter muscle, and divide into 

 ramifications which are spent upon the cheek and the side of 

 the nose and lips, and communicate with the small branches of 

 the superior maxillary nerve. 



A large number of branches, the cervico-facial, pass down- 

 wards. Many of them incline forwards, and are spent on the 

 soft parts about the under jaw ; while others proceed below 

 the jaw to the superficial muscles and integuments of the 

 upper part of the neck, communicating with the branches of 

 the contiguous nerves.* 



The Eighth Pair of Nerves, 



Are very frequently denominated the Par Vagum, on account 

 of their very extensive distribution. 



They arise from the medulla oblongata between the Cor- 

 pora Restiformia and the Corpora Olivaria. Each nerve 

 consists of a cord, which is anterior, and called the Glosso- 

 Pharyngeal; and of a considerable number of small filaments, 



* A most minute and labored description of the nerves of the face was pub- 

 lished by the celebrated Meckel, in the seventh volume of Memoirs of the 

 Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, for the year 1751, accompanied with a 

 plate, exhibiting the side of the head, of three times the natural size. This is 

 republished in the Collection Academique : Partie Etrang^re. — Tom. viii. 



