Carotid

[Gr. Karotides - karoo, to procure sleep, to stupefy.) ( Anat. ) The large artery of the neck; so called from a belief that if pre ed upon, so as to impede the circulation in it, the individual would fall asleep. On the right side the C. is given off from the arteria in no min at a, and on the left it rises immediately from the arch of the aorta. (See fig. 120.) The C. on either side divides, near the angle of the lower jaw, into the internal and external branches: the first entering the skull, and supplying the two halves or hemispheres of the brain, the eyes, and other parts with their chief source of nourishment; the second being ramified over the neck, cheeks, scalp, and external ear. The carotids, though not the only, are by far the largest arteries supplying the brain with blood; and, as a consequence, when the main trunk of either is divided, as is so frequently the case in determined suicides, the hemorrhage is almost always fatal.