A treatise on the diseases and surgical operations of the mouth, and parts adjacent; with notes of interesting cases, ancient and modern / Translated from the French of M. Jourdain.

  • Jourdain, M. (Anselme Louis Bernard Bréchillet), 1734-1816.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the diseases and surgical operations of the mouth, and parts adjacent; with notes of interesting cases, ancient and modern / Translated from the French of M. Jourdain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/418 (page 41)
    ance, in consequence of which, they grow from the floor of the antrum, and are sometimes lost in it. I shall present several interesting cases of this kind. The development of the maxillary sinus, as of all other parts of the body, has its limits. At the age of thirty, the prominent portion of its wall is less transparent than at eighteen or twenty ; at sixty, this external wall is of nearly uniform thickness. We may infer, from this progressive ossification, that the diameter of the cavity diminishes as life advances, reckoning from the period when the body ceases to increase in size, that it may add to its strength and compactness.* The antrum is supplied with nerves from branches of the olfactory [1st pair] and from the superior maxillary branch of the fifth pair, [trigeminus or trifacial.] Its arteries are derived from the first division of the fifth, or internal maxillary, branch of the external carotid. The larger branches spread usually upon the side of the outer wall of the sinus, and pass in a some- what tortuous course along the alveolar arch, at the bottom of the cavity. The other branches spread in every direction, and form on the membrane a plexus of vessels, which may be seen in those who have died of inflammatory diseases, accompanied with delirium, etc. [The maxillary artery is, in the present more accurate enumeration, the eleventh branch, in order, of the common carotid. The antrum is supplied from below by small branches of the superior dental artery, and from above by branches of the infra orbital artery, also by other smaller branch- es given off from adjoining vessels.] Although these arteries are not very large, their section may give rise to fatal hemor- rhage, as I have witnessed. What reproach must such a result of imprudence in operating occasion an honest mind. The veins of the sinus are supplied by the external and anterior jugulars. Authors are not agreed as to the uses of the maxillary sinus. Reason and sound physiology, founded on anatomical examina- tion, incline to the opinion that it serves to increase the sense *This consolidation of the walls of the antrum is made by deposition within the cavity, without any external enlargement. 4#