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Home  »  Anatomy of the Human Body  »  pages 148

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

pages 148

Behind the dorsum sellæ is a shallow depression, the clivus, which slopes obliquely backward, and is continuous with the groove on the basilar portion of the occipital bone; it supports the upper part of the pons.


FIG. 145– Sphenoid bone. Upper surface. (See enlarged image)


FIG. 146– Sphenoid bone. Anterior and inferior surfaces. (See enlarged image)
  The lateral surfaces of the body are united with the great wings and the medial pterygoid plates. Above the attachment of each great wing is a broad groove, curved something like the italic letter f; it lodges the internal carotid artery and the cavernous sinus, and is named the carotid groove. Along the posterior part of the lateral margin of this groove, in the angle between the body and great wing, is a ridge of bone, called the lingula.
  The posterior surface, quadrilateral in form (Fig. 147), is joined, during infancy and adolescence, to the basilar part of the occipital bone by a plate of cartilage.