In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. The Fourteenth Book of the work of Galen on Anatomical Dissection. In it the anatomy of the nerves arising from the brain will be discussed.

MACERATION OF SKELETONS FOR STUDY OF NERVE-FORAMINA. NOTES ON OTHER ANATOMISTS AND THEIR VIEWS.

Galen says: The dissection of the nerves is a toilsome and difficult matter for many reasons. Among these is the fact that a thorough examination of the nerves springing from the brain and the spinal cord cannot be made unless you cut away, as completely as may be necessary, the bones which surround their sites of origin. But if we do cut away those bones, though the parts of the nerves that encircle their inner portion remain intact without having been cut or torn through, I mean the parts which emerge from the thicker of the two meninges of the brain and of the spinal marrow, what lies in the middle of these parts, which are like bark round the wood of a tree, does not remain uninjured, even though it is not cut or torn through. For its root, its site of implantation, is found in a soft tender body, I mean in the brain and the spinal marrow. Further, there is the fact that the fleshy tissue of the muscles veils and covers those nerves which distribute themselves in the musculature. Also, on account of the enveloping fat, many of the nerves elude the view.