Dissection guides : aimed at extending and facilitating such practical work in anatomy as will be specially useful in connection with an ordinary hospital curriculum / by Thomas Cooke, F.R.C.S. (Eng.).

  • Cooke, Thomas, 1841-1899.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dissection guides : aimed at extending and facilitating such practical work in anatomy as will be specially useful in connection with an ordinary hospital curriculum / by Thomas Cooke, F.R.C.S. (Eng.). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    16/128 (page 12)
    :2 ir. Z?^ filen aiguille—From thread to needle —is a French proverbial expression descriptive of a good way to avoid losing small objects, and to easily find them again when they get out of sight. Keep a thread in the eye of your needle ; and, if yoa lose sight of the needle, the thread, which you may rely upon seeing, will at any time lead you up to it. I was working at anatomy in Paris some thirty years ago. Subjects were abundant, and we used to get out the same parts over and over again. It struck me one day, when dis- secting the pterygo-maxillary region, that an unnecessary amount of labour was spent on each occasion by the method then, and, except with us, still at present in vogue, of getting out the facial nerve and its branches as they traverse the parotid gland. Not feeling satisfied to ]Droceed without each time cleaning the facial nerve, nor caring to be so long over this preliminary part of the work, I set about looking for a quicker way. I found that I could cut down upon the trunk of the facial nerve without much difficulty where it crosses the root of the styloid process, a little above and in front of the transverse process of the atlas, and that, when once on the trunk of the nerve, I could trace out the branches to the face & neck in a very short time. It is in this way that I have dissected the facial nerve ever since, and many are the anatomists that I have sur- prised by the rapidity and completeness of detail with which I conduct the dissection. Here the transverse process of the atlas leads me to the styloid process, the styloid process leads me to the trunk of the facial nerve, and the trunk leads me to the branches.— Be fil en aigidlle^