OCR Text |
Show 758 PROF. W. H. FLOWER ON ELURUS FULGENS. [Nov. 15, trical, and not passing across the middle line. Beyond the posterior molar teeth the palate is quite smooth, and the cavity of the mouth becomes narrow and tubular, the soft palate terminating by a thin straight edge, without uvula, rather more than an inch behind the end of the middle line of the hard palate. On each side of the fauces, opposite the root of the tongue, the tonsils appear as very distinct, longitudinally disposed, saccular depressions, ^ inch in length, the inferior margins of which are everted, hard, and tumid, and form conspicuous elongated fusiform elevations. The tongue appears to have no special extensibility. It is rather thick and fleshy in its posterior half. Its dorsal surface is flat anteriorly. From the base it slightly widens forwards to the middle, then gradually narrows towards the apex, which is somewhat abruptly truncated. It is 3" long from base to tip, 1*1" in greatest breadth, *5" wide close to the tip; the apex projects *8" beyond the franum. The papillae are small and soft, consisting of numerous small, rounded "conical" papillse (which are longer and more pointed at the base and edges than elsewhere), scattered " fungiform " papillae- and an irregular V-shaped group of "circumvallate" papillae, of which there are seven on the left and but four on the right side; two of the latter, however, are of double the size of any of the others, and oval in shape. At the base of the franum is a small flattened, bilobed sublingual process, *2" in width. The lower border of the parotid gland is nearly straight, 2" from before backwards ; above, the gland is divided into two portions, one rising in front of, the other behind, the meatus auditorius ; the latter is twice the size of the former. The duct leaves the anterior inferior angle of the gland, and runs directly forwards across the masseter muscle, and enters the mouth opposite the hinder edge of the third premolar. The submaxillary gland is small and oval, broader behind than in front, somewhat compressed, 1" in length, *5" in greatest thickness, with a small accessory gland composed of very loosely connected lobules lying at the upper anterior border, and which has a distinct duct which joins the main duct of the submaxillary half an inch from the principal gland. The conjoined duct, 2 inches in length, terminates in an orifice at the under surface of the sublingual process. The epiglottis is in the form of an equilateral triangle, each side of which is y" long. The apex is scarcely at all rounded. Both upper and lower vocal cords are very distinct, with a well-marked ventricle between them. The upper or false cords are very thin, but prominent, ridges; the lower or true vocal cords are flattened bands, with the upper edge the most distinct. The thyroid cartilage is very narrow from above downwards, measuring but *15" in the middle of each ala. Anteriorly it has a deep median notch in the inferior border. Near the external end of the same border is a well-marked triangular eminence, projecting forwards and outwards, to |