8 
PRIMROSE : THE ANATMOY OF THE ORANG OUTANG 
In the cheek of man there exists what is called the buccal fat pad. 
This is a circumscribed mass of lobulated fat lying upon the buccinator 
muscle and the anterior margin of the masseter muscle, closely sur- 
rounding the duct of the parotid gland. It is particularly well devel- 
oped in the cheek of the infant, and has been called the “ sucking 
pad ” on account of its supposed function in connection with the 
act of sucking. Symington^ has demonstrated the relations of this 
pad of fat in the cheek of the child, and has figured the pads as 
they appear in coronal section through the cheek. Ranke^ states 
that the existence of this pad was first described by Heister in 
1732, who, however, mistook it for a gland, and called it the “glandula 
molaris;” and later anatomists followed this erroneous view. Ranke 
showed that it was surrounded by a connective tissue envelope, through 
which it was connected to the underlying buccinator muscle, and 
that a deep process of the mass passed backwards and upwards into 
the spheno-maxillary fossa under the ramus of the jaw and the lower 
part of the temporal muscle. It was found well developed in a four 
months’ old foetus, and, while it persists throughout life, it is more notice- 
able as a well-defined structure in the infant. A peculiarity of this 
cheek pad is that, according to Ranke, it withstands the destructive 
processes which destroy the subcutaneous fat in many wasting diseases. 
Macalister^ is apparently in error in making a statement to the con- 
trary. These pads become unduly prominent when the neighbouring 
subcutaneous fat of the cheek wastes away. This sucking pad in my 
Orang was remarkably well developed. It formed an isolated mass 
completely separated from the subcutaneous fat, and presented all the 
features described as characteristic of it in the human infant. 
In the Orang, as age advances, enormous masses of fat develop in the 
cheeks and in the neck. It is not certain whether or not these cheek 
pads are developed from the sucking pad already described — probably 
they are rather developed from the subcutaneous fat. At all events, in 
the old Orang, these later developments of fat attain great dimensions. 
They are fully described and figured by Fick.^ According to his state- 
ment, they had not been previously described, but we find that Huxley ® 
mentions them as occurring in an adult male Orang. The extreme 
1 Johnson Symington, “ The Topographical Anatomy ot the Child.” Edinburgh, 1887, p. 14. 
2 H. Ranke, “ Eln Saugpolster in der menschlichen Backe.” 
Virchow’s Archiv fur path. Anat. und Phys., Vol. XCVII, 1884, p. 527. 
3 A. Macalister, “ A Text book of Human Anatomy.” London, 1889, p. 566. 
4 Loc. cit., p. 2. 
5 Loc. cit., Vol. I, p. 564. 
