Volume 2

The surgical works of John Hunter ... with notes / edited by James F. Palmer.

  • Hunter, John, 1728-1793.
Date:
1835-1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The surgical works of John Hunter ... with notes / edited by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    31/556 (page 9)
    Of the Temporal Muscle. The temporal muscle is situated on the side of the head, above and a little before the ear. It is a flat and radiated muscle ; broad and thin at its origin; narrow and thick at its insertion; and covered with a pretty strong fascia above the jugum. This fascia is fixed to the bones round the whole circumference of the origin of the muscle. Above, it is fixed to a smooth white line, which is observable upon the skull, extending from a little ridge on the lateral part of the os frontis, continued across the parietal bone, and making a turn towards the mammillary process. It is fixed below to the ridge where the zygomatic process begins, just above the meatus auditorius ; then to the upper edge of the zygomatic process itself, and anteriorly to the os malse. This adhesion above, before and behind, describes, as it were, the circumference of the origin of the temporal muscle. This muscle arises from all the bones of the side of the head that are within the line for insertion of the tendinous fascia, viz. from the lower and lateral part of the parietal bone, from all the squamous portion of the temporal bone, from the lower and lateral part of the os frontis, from the temporal process of the os sphenoides, often from a process at the lower part of this surface, (which portion, however, is often common to this muscle and the pterygoideus externus,) and from the posterior surface of the os malse : outwardly, it arises from the inner surface of the jugum, and from the whole inner surface of the fascia. At this origin from the jugum it is not to be distinguished from the masseter, being there in fact one and the same muscle ; and indeed the masseter is no more than a continuation of the same origin under the edge of the jugum, and might properly enough be reckoned the same, both as to its origin and insertion, and in some measure in its use also. The origin is principally fleshy, and the muscle passes from thence downwards and a little forwards, converging, and forming a thin middle tendon: after which the muscle runs downwards on the inside of the jugum, and is inserted into the coronoid process of the lower jaw, on both sides tendinous and fleshy, but principally tendinous. It reaches further down upon the inside of the coronoid process than upon the outside, the insertion being continued as low down as the body of the bone. The posterior and inferior edge of this muscle passes over the root of the zygomatic process of the temporal bone as over a pulley, which con- fines the action of the muscle to that of raising the lower jaw more than if its fibres had passed in a direct course from their origin to their in- sertion.