252 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
pharyngeal of Tandler. The latter vessel arises separately from the com- 
mon carotid, or together with the occipital, or from the common trunk 
as described by Tandler. It passes anteriorly along the median ventral 
border of the auditory bulla and after giving off branches to the wall of 
the pharynx enters the auditory bulla along with the Eustachian tube 
and at the middle lacerated foramen joins the internal carotid. Wilder 
and Gage are the' only ones who have heretofore recognized this union 
of the anterior pharyngeal with the internal carotid. The two arteries 
are not usually equaly well developed; where one is of considerable 
size the other is likely to be vestigial. 
The writer finds no evidence to support the statement of Tandler that 
there are two auricular arteries arising from the external carotid. 
Tandler is also in error in saying that the superficial temporal and trans- 
versal fasciei arise by a common trunk from the external carotid just 
anterior to the ear. This common trunk divides as described by Reig- 
hard and Jennings into a superficial temporal, a branch to the masseter 
muscle, and an auricular branch. At about the same level as that of the 
inferior alveolar artery, that is, opposite the condyloid process of the 
mandible, arises an artery that supplies the deeper muscles of the tem- 
poral fossa. Mivart speaks of a branch “going to the muscles of the 
temporal fossa”, but he evidently refers to the superficial temporal. 
Reighard and Jennings describe an artery arising at this level, but call 
it the middle meningeal, although in one of their figures the branch 
called middle meningeal is represented as running antero-dorsally into 
the temporal fossa. This artery going to the deeper portions of the 
temporal muscle probably represents in part the A. temporalis profunda 
posterior of human anatomy, and properly may be designated as such 
here. According to Mivart the meningeal artery arises from the carotid 
plexus and passes into the skull through the sphenoidal fissure. Reig- 
hard and Jennings state that the middle meningeal starts from the 
internal maxillary at about the same level as the inferior alveolar and 
enters the cranium through the foramen ovale. I find that the middle 
meningeal artery arises variously. More often it arises from the intra- 
cranial portion of the carotid plexus. Less frequently it takes its origin 
essentially as described by Reighard and Jennings. Occasionally it 
springs from a vessel that runs from the internal maxillary artery 
through the foramen ovale to the intra-cranial part of the carotid plexus. 
In most cases the small branch of the internal maxillary that enters the 
foramen ovale has nothing to do with the middle meningeal artery, but 
passes to the posterior surface of the tentorium. The branch figured by 
Reighard and Jennings as the middle meningeal is evidently the posterior 
deep temporal. The latter arises at the point where the external carotid 
makes a sharp dorsal bend, and passes antero-laterally and dorsally 
across the ventral median portion of the condyloid process of the mandi- 
ble into the temporal fossa. 
In the region of the sphenoidal fissure the internal maxillary artery 
gives off a number of small branches that by subdivision form the carotid 
plexus about the exit of the maxillary branch of the trigeminal nerve. 
