Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.

are groups of branches given off from the superior maxillary as it passed the sphenomaxillary fossa, which give the posterior dental, &c.; also during its passage through the infra-orbital canal, which latter gives the middle and anterior dental; but it is the group that radiates on the face, giving the cutaneous and superficial muscular filaments, that we most need to study here. We often find occasion to know that there are considerable fil- aments furnished by the orbital branch of the superior max- illary, that ascends along the outer wall of the orbit, receiving there a twig from the lachrymal, then plunging through a canal in the edge of the-malar bone to enter the temporal fossa, supplying the temporal muscles and fascia, and is finally lost in the skin of the temple and side of the forehead, but com- municating with the portio dura, the auricular, and the tem- poral nerves. A posterior branch supplies the back teeth, the alveoli, and their gums. The middle and anterior dental branches, before their distribution, form the superior maxillary plexus, and from this the filaments are given off that supply the pulps of the teeth, the gums, alveoli, and the mucous membrane of the floor of the nares and the palate. But the cutaneous and muscular filaments are the true terminations of this nerve, not only supplying the muscles, the skin, and the mucous membrane of the cheek, nose, and lips, but also form intricate plexus with the more superficial branches of the portio dura, and hence are often neuralgic. The Vidian or Pterygoid nerve is one, that is here of the utmost importance for our study. This nerve arises from the spheno- palatine ganglion, traverses the vidian canal of the sphenoid, and then divides into two branches. But it is only the external branch that particularly interests us. This is called the superior cranial or nervus superflcialis petrosus, which ascends into the cranium, and enters the hiatus, to unite with the facial nerve. And let us be reminded that it is very near the point where these two nerves anastomose that the chorda tympani branches off. This superficial cranial branch of the vidian, according to Arnold, presents all the characteristics of a cephalic nerve in its whiteness and toughness of structure. Thus we find, even