In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful, whose aid we invoke. Summary [of the contents] of the Eleventh Book of the work on Anatomical Dissection. There will be discussed the parts of the larynx in the bodies of apes; the structure of the muscles of the larynx; the organic parts which adjoin the larynx in the bodies of swine; what sort of form, in the bodies of swine, has the bone resembling the letter Λ in the Greek script [the hyoid bone]; the root of the tongue, the activities of the tongue, and its uses; the nerve [vagus] of the neck in the living animal.

SUPERFICIAL DISSECTION OF THE NECK, ANATOMY OF THE LARYNGEAL CARTILAGES, AND OBSERVATIONS ON BILATERAL SYMMETRY IN THE BODY.

Insofar as the organic parts of the larynx are concerned you must dissect them in the following manner. First, it is necessary that you remove the M. platysma, the thin muscle called the muscular carpet. In this way you will be able to observe the muscles that go from the larynx and the hyoid bone to the sternum, and you will see the spongy flesh [submandibular salivary gland] lying on each side of the wide part of the mandible. On each side there is this ‘flesh’ which forms a single unit of considerable size.

After this flesh, when it has been removed, and all the fascial coverings reflected which clothe and veil the entire laryngeal region, there appears the muscle of the mandible which one rightly calls ‘tendinous', since its intermediate part is tendinous and fleshless [M. digastricus]. Follow well, listener, what I say and expound to you.