358 NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



and altogether free from the controul of the will*. The sympa- 

 thetic nerve may be said to take its beginning from an oblong 

 reddish body, lodged at the base of the cranium, beneath and 

 in front of the atlas, denominated the anterior cervical ganglion. 

 It is to be observed here, however, that the several nerves con- 

 nected with the ganglia (however they may be treated of in 

 this description) may be considered either as emanating from 

 the substance of the ganglion, or as contributing to its forma- 

 tion. 



The anterior cervical ganglion may be said to be formed prin- 

 cipally by two branches sent down from the fifth pair, the 

 larger of which accompanies the internal carotid ; by two or 

 more fine filaments traceable to the edges of the petrous por- 

 tion of the temporal bone, and probably derived from the sixth 

 pair; and by two or three other nervous threads accompany- 

 ing the eighth pair, which seem to spring from the medulla 

 oblongataf. These branches then, we will say, it receives. 

 It transmits filaments of communication to the par vagum and 

 its laryngeal branch, to the glosso-pharyngeus, the accessory, 

 and the inferior branches of the sub-occipital and first cer- 

 vical nerves. Posteriorly, it sends off a filament which crosses 

 to the carotid artery, where it divides and anastomoses with 

 the carotid branches of the par vagum. At its posterior ex- 

 tremity, the ganglion grows smaller, and ends in the sympa- 

 thetic nerve, which puts on the appearance of being a conti- 

 nuation of it. At first, the nerve is deeply lodged between the 

 carotid artery and par vagum ; it takes its course along the neck 

 likewise between them : indeed, it is so closely united with the 

 latter, that, being invested in the same cellular sheath, at first 

 view they appear but as one nerve : they are readily distinguished, 

 however, in being disunited, by the comparative small size of the 



* This system of nerves appear to be for the purpose of "uniting the body 

 into a whole, in the performance of the functions of nutrition, growth, and 

 decay, and whatever is directly necessary to animal existence." — "They 

 have nothing to do with volition, sensation, respiration, expression, sound, 

 or speech." — Dell's Nervous System. 



f I am by no means satisfied, however, about the origin of these threads 

 of nerves, which arc so fine that I have not hitherto been able to follow 

 them distinctly through the dura mater, whose fibres so much resemble the 

 nerves themselves. Of the two branches (said to come from the fifth pair), 

 (lirard traces the larger one to a ganglion under the occiput, opposite to 

 the origin of the Eustachian tube, which he calls the sub-occipital ganglion ; 

 the other, he says, joins a little ganglion in the cavernous sinus. From the 

 sub-occipital ganglion, he traces two or three filaments onward to the fifth 

 pair, at their origin ; and one or two, much larger, he finds, which seem, he 

 adds, to be destined to the medulla oblongata. Vide Girard's Anut. Gen., 

 Edit, ii, torn, ii, page 429. 



