Illustrated Encyclopedia of Human Anatomic Variation: Opus II: Cardiovascular System
Ronald A. Bergman, PhD
Adel K. Afifi, MD, MS
Ryosuke Miyauchi, MD
Peer Review Status: Internally Peer Reviewed
"In addtition to the variations in the number and origins of its branches, the ophthalmic artery also presents variations in its course, in that, instead of passing to the inner wall of the orbit above the optic nerve, it sometimes passes below that structure. The most striking variation which it presents, however, is associated with the development of the branch of the lacrimal artery, which passes back through the sphenoidal fissure to anastomose with the middle meningeal. Occasionally this branch becomes exceptionally large and forms the main stem of the lacrimal artery, the connection of that vessel with the ophthalmic vanishing, so that it seems to be a branch of the middle meningeal. A further step in this process which sometimes occurs results in the origin of the entire ophthalmic system of vessels from the middle meningeal artery."
Redrawn from Huber, G.C. Piersol's Human Anatomy Including Structure and Development and Practical Considerations, 9th Ed., Vol. 1 , p. 751. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1930.
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