Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The anatomy of the thymus gland / by Sir Astley Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
18/84 (page 6)
![thyroidei muscles, and the carotid arteries and internal jugular veins pass near to its outer side. The cornua of the Gland occupy each side of the trachia and larynx, they are covered near the sternum by the sterno mastoidei muscles which recede from them near the head, and are placed more externally opposite to the division of the common carotid artery into external and internal, and near the OS hyoides the cornua are curved upon themselves so as to be doubled at their ends to add to their leno-th, and to increase their surface for secretion, and there they terminate. Such then is the general formation of the Thpnus Gland in the fcetal calf; but upon closer investigation it will be found, that the thoracic portion, although it ap])ears upon super- ficial examination to be a single body, is really formed of two columns which can be unravelled and disposed in a circle. This circle, however, is not complete, for the two columns which compose it ascend into the isthmus, Avhence they be- come small and are knit together in the ligamentous aperture I have described, but still the columns are separate in the isthmus. So the cervical portion although at first sight it appears to be a single body, is really formed of two pillars of gland which advance towards the head from the isthnms having escaped the fascial opening, and are united only by cellular tissue to each other. The cornua are formed by the separa-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21300367_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
