Tumors of the carotid body / by James G. Callison ... and John Edmund Mackenty.

  • Callison, James G.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Tumors of the carotid body / by James G. Callison ... and John Edmund Mackenty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/36 page 741
    BY JAMES G. CALLISON, M.D., OF NEW YORK, Pathologist of the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, AND JOHN EDMUND MACKENTY, M.D., Surgeon of the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital. A body 5 millimetres long, 3 millimetres wide and 2.5 millimetres thick, lying in the bifurcation of the common carotid artery, of doubtful embryological derivation, of unde¬ termined function, inconstantly present, but occasionally giving rise to tumors of a definite structure—that is the sub¬ stance of our knowledge of this gland, so-called. Because of this uncertainty as to embryological derivation or physio¬ logical function, carotid body seems a better term to use than carotid gland. Anatomy.—The carotid bodies are found in embryos of 20 to 30 millimetres long. They are variable in size, shape and position, and may be absent on one or both sides in embryo or adult. They increase in size as the individual grows, because of increase of connective tissue, blood-vessels and parenchyma. Reaching a certain size between 20 and 30 years, they remain stationary for a time and then the con¬ nective tissue only increases. The interlobular blood-vessels thicken, and sclerosis and atrophy results. The consistence of the carotid body varies, but usually it is moderately hard and elastic. In color it varies from a reddish-gray to a reddish-brown. When present, the carotid body is found most commonly a little posteriorly to the bifurcation of the common carotid artery, lying between the internal and external carotids, and more closely united to one or the other of these. It is at¬ tached to the one on which it lies by the “ ligament of Mayer,” * Read before the New York Academy of Medicine, April 23, 1913. 74i
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