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Home  »  Anatomy of the Human Body  »  pages 651

Henry Gray (1825–1861). Anatomy of the Human Body. 1918.

pages 651

and the deep cervical veins; close to its termination it is sometimes joined by the first intercostal vein.
  The Anterior Vertebral Vein commences in a plexus around the transverse processes of the upper cervical vertebræ, descends in company with the ascending cervical artery between the Scalenus anterior and Longus capitis muscles, and opens into the terminal part of the vertebral vein.


FIG. 563– The vertebral vein. (Poirier and Charpy.) (See enlarged image)
  The Deep Cervical Vein (v. cervicalis profunda; posterior vertebral or posterior deep cervical vein) accompanies its artery between the Semispinales capitis and colli. It begins in the suboccipital region by communicating branches from the occipital vein and by small veins from the deep muscles at the back of the neck. It receives tributaries from the plexuses around the spinous processes of the cervical vertebræ, and terminates in the lower part of the vertebral vein.
 
3b. 3. The Diploic Veins
 
  
(Venæ Diploicæ)


The diploic veins (Fig. 564) occupy channels in the diploë of the cranial bones. They are large and exhibit at irregular intervals pouch-like dilatations; their walls are thin, and formed of endothelium resting upon a layer of elastic tissue.
  So long as the cranial bones are separable from one another, these veins are confined to the particular bones; but when the sutures are obliterated, they unite with each other, and increase in size. They communicate with the meningeal veins and the sinuses of the dura mater, and with the veins of the pericranium. They consist of (1) the frontal, which opens into the supraorbital vein and the superior sagittal sinus; (2) the anterior temporal, which is confined chiefly to the frontal bone, and opens into the sphenoparietal sinus and into one of the deep temporal veins, through an aperture in the great wing of the sphenoid; (3) the posterior temporal, which is situated in the parietal bone, and ends in the transverse sinus, through an aperture at the mastoid angle of the parietal bone or through the