[Arterial vascularization of the optic nerve trunk in humans (author's transl)]

We study the arterial vascularization of the trunk of the optic nerve partialarly in its anterior part in human. We injected in the carotids, a mass of colored an radio opaque substance, in the whole cadaver that allows simultaneously a visual study and a radiologic control of the results. This one is completely insufficient to allow a study of details; so we used the diaphanisation as described by Spalteholz; we were able to confirm Hayreh's results: the ophthalmic artery has a variable pathway according to individus but overcrosses the most frequently the optic nerve. The posterior ciliary arteries have also an origin pathway very variable; the posterior external ciliary is the most commonly present. The central retinal artery takes its origin the ophthalmic artery no more than half of the cases, and elsewhere from a common trunk with the ciliary arteries, or even from branches of those last arteries. It always penetrates the nerve in its inferior face and is responsable of its vascularization in periphery by the man of its pial branches and in depth by its intra neural branches.