44 THE LARYNX AND TRACHEA, BY E. VERSON. 



the thin elastic tissue, which in the ventricle of Morgagni 

 separates the mucous membrane from the cartilage, undergoes 

 a remarkable thickening from the presence of a compact 

 prismatic band (the inferior thyro-arytsenoid ligament), the 

 chief portion of the fibres of which, attached in front to the 

 angle of the thyroid cartilage below the notch, run backwards 

 to the arytsenoid cartilage. 



The fibres of this cord appear to be collected into a single 

 band at their anterior extremity only ; posteriorly they sepa- 

 rate at an acute angle into several fasciculi, which are inserted 

 at different points. One of these applies itself above to the 

 posterior angle of the ventricle, and thus extends towards a 

 part of the superior thyro-arytsenoid ligament, with which it 

 interweaves. A second, which is the strongest, partly pene- 

 trates into the fibro-cartilage of the processus vocalis, and 

 partly becomes attached at a higher level to the inferior spine 

 of the arytsenoid cartilage, and consequently covers the pro- 

 cessus vocalis. A third, lastly, which occupies the lowest 

 position, splits near the processus vocalis into five or six 

 smaller bundles of fibres, which extend to the median surfaces 

 of the arytsenoid cartilages, to the inner side of the capsule of 

 the crico-arytjienoid articulation, and even as far as to the 

 upper border of the lamina cricoidea. These different fasciculi 

 are separated from one another by longitudinal fibres of con- 

 nective tissue, which arise in the neighbourhood of the cart, 

 corniculatse. 



All these elastic fasciculi unite anteriorly, as has been already 

 remarked, into a compact, and consequently smaller, cord, 

 which penetrates for some distance into the thyroid cartilage 

 itself. Very near its attachment to this cartilage the inferior 

 thyro-arytsenoid ligament forms a rounded projection, which, 

 in fine sections, appears as a dense felt of elastic fibres. This 

 thickening is easily recognizable, even in newly born children ; 

 its chief constituent, however, here consists less of elastic fibres 

 than of rounded and fusiform cells, which, with advancing age, 

 continually increase in length. I have never observed any 

 conversion into cartilage occur at this point. 



In the Dog the upward arching fasciculus of the inferior thyro- 



