Relation of dental affections to diseases of the eye.

  • Fox, Lawrance Webster, 1853-1931.
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Relation of dental affections to diseases of the eye. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    L. WEBSTRK FOX, M- 1304 Walnut Street. PHILADELPHIA. y\ _.jt RELATION OF DENTAL AFFECTIONS TO DISEASES OF THE EYE.* BY L. WEBSTER FOX, A. M., M. D., PHILADELPHIA. READ BEFORE THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE DENTAL SOCIETY, AT WILKESBARRE, july 7-9, 1903. That a fixed relation exists between the teeth and the eyes through the fifth cranial or trigeminal nerve is well known, but in order to more thoroughly understand this relationship it is necessary to briefly review the anatomy and the distribution of this nerve. The fifth cranial nerve is the sensory nerve of the muscles of the face and the motor nerve of the muscles of mastication. It arises by two roots, one of which is sensory and takes its origin from the side of the pons Varolii and from the nucleus near the margin of the fourth ventricle in the brain; the other, the motor root, originates in a nucleus on the floor of the fourth ventricle internal to that of the sensory root. These roots run forward between the bone and dura mater to the apex of the petrous portion of the temporal bone, where the fibers of the sensory root form- the Gasserian ganglion. The motor root passes beneath it without being connected with it, joining one of its trunks outside the cranium. The Gasserian gang- lion gives off three large branches—the ophthalmic, the superior maxillary, and the inferior maxillary nerves. The ophthalmic is a sensory nerve and supplies the eyeball, lacri- mal gland, mucous membrane of the eye and nasal fossae, and the integument of the eyebrow, forehead, and nose. It joins with fila- ments from the cavernous plexus of the sympathetic, the third, the sixth, and sometimes the fourth cranial nerve. It divides into three branches; the lacrimal, frontal, and nasal. The nasal branch fur- ther subdivides into ganglionic, ciliary, and infratrochlear filaments. I he ganglion branch passes forward between the two heads of the external rectus on the outer side of the optic nerve, joining a branch from the third or oculomotor nerve and filaments from the cavernous plexus of the sympathetic to those from the ophthalmic ganglion. Its •Reprint from February, 1904, Dental Digest.