9^ THOMPSON YATES LABORATORIES REPORT 
It is true that in Flower's 'Diagrams of the Nerves of the Human Body' (i88l), the area of 
the internal saphenous nerve is given along the tibial aspect of the hallux, very nearly, if not quite, 
as far as terminal phalanx, and this although no overlapping at all is indicated. In Thane's more 
careful figure of the cutaneous areas of the nerves of the low^er limb (1895) in which overlapping 
is depicted, the area of the internal saphenous nerve is not carried so far down the hallux, and 
occupies part of its dorsal as well as of its lateral aspect. It is my belief that clinical observation 
can, on such subjects as this, afford more perfect information than can dissection. Through the 
Fig. 7 
kindness of Mr. Robert Jones, of Liverpool, and Dr. Chalmers, I have had the opportunity of 
delimiting the field of the internal saphenous nerve in a patient in whom a portion of the length 
of the sciatic nerve was excised high up underneath the gluteus maximus. I have been unable to 
find any previous instance of the clinical delimitation of the field of this nerve. 
The patient was a well-grown young woman of German extraction, twenty-two years of age. 
Her answers, under examination, were particularly clear and intelligent. The condition noted at a 
period four weeks after the resection of the (right) sciatic was the following : — The border of the 
anaesthesia is delimited by a line which can be traced thus : Starting from a point just behind the head 
of the fibula, it crosses forwards and downwards below that point, and reaches the anterior surface of the 
limb lying upon the junction of the peroneal and pretibial groups of muscles. At the junction of the 
lower and middle thirds of the leg it sweeps forward, and at i inch above the level of the malleoli it lies 
to the tibial side of the median line of the limb. It then passes down about i inch in front of the 
internal malleolus, and thence to the top of the scaphoid. From there it turns back behind it to reach 
