Chorda tympan nerve section for postherpetic neuralgia of the tongue.

Abstract

Herpes zoster is considered at present an acute specific infection caused by a neurotropic and epidermotropic virus with a predilection for the posterior spinal ganglia or the extramedullary ganglia of the cranial nerves. The clinical picture includes an erythematous vesicular eruption in the cutaneous or mucosal distribution of the sensory nerves. In herpes zoster oticus the herpetic eruption occurs in a certain area of the external ear (the "geniculate" zone). Hunt contended, in a report published in 1907, that the primary disorder was in the geniculate ganglion of the facial nerve. He assumed that the infection spreads from the ganglion by means of anastomosis to other cranial nerves, especially the statoacusticus and its ganglia. Later pathoanatomical studies have shown that, in addition to neuritic changes, localized leptomeningitis also occurs in cases of herpes zoster (Denny-Brown and associates). This is easy to understand because the geniculate ganglion, as well as the