The Ascending Pharyngeal Artery

The ascending pharyngeal artery of the dog was investigated by means of the acryl plastic injection method. This artery usually arose from the external carotid artery, sometimes from the occipital, the posterior auricular, or rarely the ascending palatine of the lingual artery. It ran forwards between the vagus and hypoglossal nerves and continued anteromedially up to the posterolateral wall of the pharynx at the superior margin of the thyropharyngeus muscle, in contact with the inferomedial end of the tympanic bulla. En route it gave rise to the thyropharyngeal, the stylopharyngeal and the styloglossal branches, sometimes additionally the inferior cervical, the digastric and the palatine branches, although all these branches were not observed when it arose from the lingual. It reached to the inferomedial end of the foramen caroticum extemum after giving rise to twigs to the pharyngeal mucosa between the pharyn-