DR. LEE ON THE GANGLIA AND NERVES OF THE HEART. 
45 
which it will be seen that some of these fusiform ganglionic enlargements of the car- 
diac nerves are nearly in the same position as that of the “ ganglion insigne,” de- 
scribed and figured by Scarpa in the heart of the Horse, Tab. VII. 
The ventricles and auricles of the human heart and those of the larger quadrupeds 
are covered with two distinct membranes. The first or exterior of these is the serous 
membrane which lines the pericardium and is reflected over the whole surface of the 
heart ; this membrane is connected rather firmly by cellular tissue with another tunic, 
which has scarcely if at all been noticed by anatomists. This second membrane 
has a dense fibrous structure, is semitransparent, and resembles in a striking manner 
the aponeurotic expansions or fasciae covering muscles in other parts of the body, 
and, like them, sends numerous fibres or processes between the muscular fasciculi, 
blood-vessels, nerves and adipose substance of the heart, which it binds closely 
together. This aponeurotic expansion investing both ventricles and auricles may be 
appropriately termed, from its structure and function, the fibrous membrane, or 
Cardiac Fascia. 
The drawings, which have been executed by Mr. West with the greatest pains and 
attention to accuracy, will supply the need of special verbal description of the nervous 
filaments, their anastomotic enlargements and fusiform swellings ; and the series of my 
dissections shows that the nerves of the heart which are distributed over its surface, 
and throughout its walls to the lining membrane and columnae carneae, enlarge with 
the natural growth of the heart, before birth and during childhood and youth, until 
the heart has attained its full size in the adult ; that the nervous supply of the left 
ventricle is greater than that of the right ; and that when the walls of the auricles 
and ventricles are affected with hypertrophy, the ganglia and nerves of the heart are 
enlarged like those of the gravid uterus. 
Explanation of the Plates. 
PLATE 1. 
Fig. 1 represents the great cardiac ganglionic plexus of nerves, situated between the 
aorta and pulmonary artery, which receives branches of nerves from the 
sympathetic, par vagum, and recurrent nerves of both sides : and likewise 
the ganglia and nerves distributed over the surface of the left ventrical of 
the heart of a child nine years of age. Natural size. 
a. The arch of the aorta. 
b. The pulmonary artery truncated at its origin. 
c. The anterior surface of the left ventricle of the heart. 
d. The anterior surface of the right ventricle, 
e. The left par vagum and recurrent nerve. 
f. The great cardiac ganglionic plexus of nerves situated between the aorta 
and pulmonary artery, from which all the principal cardiac nerves are 
derived. 
