462 MR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
running from one to another, and giving to the whole a plexus¬ 
like appearance. This is a division of minute anatomy which 
has been hitherto neglected. Considering the greater develop¬ 
ment of the nerves, both animal and organic, in our patients, 
we have superior opportunities for inquiring into it; and when 
we have a little emerged from that obscurity or disrepute under 
which the students of veterinary medicine have hitherto laboured, 
the possible connexion between the structure and the function 
of the nerves may be one subject, and far from being the most 
important one, that may be entrusted to our research ; and, if it 
should hereafter appear that our practice is based on anatomical 
facts, and strict physiological deductions, and close observance 
of their bearing on disease, the pathology of domesticated animals 
will be acknowledged to be one of the most useful auxiliaries in 
the study of human medicine. 
The Coarse of the Seventh Nerve .—This nerve emerges from 
the skull through the meatus auditorius interims, inclosed in 
the same sheath with the eighth pair (the portio mollis or 
auditory nerve). The eighth soon runs its course, as already 
described ; but the seventh, when passing through the spiral 
canal in the temporal bone, and at the bottom of the meatus, 
gives off two important branches, somewhat differing from those, 
described by human anatomists. The first answers nearly to 
the chorda tympani or nerve of the tympanum, for it passes 
across that cavity, and along the handle of the malleus, or rather 
between it and the incus ; it then escapes from the tympanum 
through a small foramen appropriated to this purpose, descends 
towards the tongue, and unites with the lingual nerve. The 
other branch also passes through the extremity of the tympanum 
—it follows the direction of the eustachian tube—anastomoses 
with the vidian nerve of the fifth pair, traverses the suboccipital 
ganglion, and, deeply seated beneath the temporal bone after its 
escape through a foramen in the sphenoid bone, it distributes 
its ramifications over the neighbouring parts. 
The main trunk of the nerve, passing from the spiral canal, 
is found behind the condyle of the lower jaw; and there it first 
assumes the character of a kind of gangliform plexus, and 
ramifies into various branches. Three go to the different parts 
of the ear,—the anterior branch supplies the muscles of the 
anterior part of the ear, constitutes another plexus before and at 
the base of the scutiform cartilage, anastomoses with the lachrymal 
branch of the ophthalmic nerve, and loses itselfin the neighbour¬ 
ing integument and muscles ;—the posterior auricular goes to 
the back of the ear, and supplies the muscles and integument 
there ; while the internal auricular enters the conch, and ramifies 
