THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. X, No. 111.] MARCH 1837. [New Series, No.51. 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
By Mr. Youatt. 
LECTURE X. 
The Recurrent Nerves. 
WHEN the great spinal organic nerve, on either side, is en- 
tering the chest, it sends off certain branches, which, as soon as 
they have left the parent nerve, turn and assume a retrograde course, 
and climb up the whole length of the neck, and reach and ramify 
upon and bury themselves in the larynx. On account of this 
retrograde path these branches are termed the recurrent nerves. 
The places, however, at which, on either side, they quit the 
original nerve, do not precisely correspond ; nor do they travel 
exactly the same course along the neck, or distribute them- 
selves to the same parts ; they must, therefore, be described 
separately. 
The Right Recurrent Nerve. — This is first given off as the main 
trunk reaches the first rib, and after it has passed before the sub- 
clavian artery. It immediately takes a curved direction round 
and to the back of the artery, seeming as if it would surround it, 
and at the same time inclining towards the median line of the 
neck. It is afterwards found behind the common carotid and 
thyroideal arteries, and thus gains the side of the trachea. It 
gives filaments to the cardiac plexus, connecting the heart with 
the functions of the larynx, and accounting for that convulsive 
sobbing breathing which accompanies certain stages of disease, 
and is rarely missing when various maladies are approaching to 
their fatal close. 
The Tracheal Branches. — As it climbs up the neck, the right 
recurrent gives many a branch to the trachea; and especially to 
the posterior part of it. There are not only branches which seem 
to ramify on the surface of the windpipe, but which evidently 
are piercing its coats, and distributing themselves on its interior 
surface, supplying the moderate degree of sensibility which this 
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