On the cerebral sinuses and their variations / by J.F. Knott.

  • Knott, John, 1853-1921.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the cerebral sinuses and their variations / by J.F. Knott. 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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    : . P i , . , J • ;< V* ’****• ' Jr ON THE d^EijEA^ SINUSES AND THEIR VARIA- TIO^H^y J. F. Knott, F.R.C.S.I. The peculiarities in the cerebral circulation are so numerous and striking as to be obvious even to the most superficial observer. The most prominent were known to the older ana- tomists, but it is not a little remarkable bow imperfectly they must have been examined, as some of the mistakes which are gravely put forward in their descriptions are absolutely ludicrous when read by the light of our present knowledge. The veins of the brain being of large size and superficially situated at once meet the eye of the anatomist, and require comparatively little trouble for an investigation of their course. The most obvious peculiarities presented by these vessels when contrasted with the various canals of the other parts of the body are: the looseness of their connections with the surrounding tissues; their taking a course completely separate from that of the arteries ; and their terminations in the peculiar dura-matral canals, into which they pass (at least in the case of the large proportion which open into the superior longitudinal sinus) in a direction opposed to that of the current within the receiving vessel. The absence of valves is a characteristic which they possess in common with most of the veins of the other cavities of the body. The sinuses or dura-matral canals which receive the cerebro- meningeal veins were described with considerable accuracy by Galen, and it is curious to find that Vesalius, in times com- paratively modern, and with better opportunities for examina- tion of the human body, should have retrograded so much as to contradict Galen’s account by asserting that the sinuses received arteries as well as veins, and that a pulsation was transmitted from the former. The mistake of Vesalius was refuted by Fallopius, but again revived and adopted by Vieussens, Wepfer, and other anatomists of this period, who were imposed upon by the facility with which injected fluid passed from the arteries into the sinuses. The minute and careful dissections of Albinus with the microscopic observations of Lieuwenhoek, finally settled the question, and established the origin of the veins from