Parotid and submandibular regions

Why this matters

These are the glands a dentist palpates, milks, injects past, drills near and takes films of. They are also where the region's two commonest diseases live — and they live in opposite glands, for reasons that turn out to be structural.

The big picture

All three glands formed late, around structures that were already there. How completely each one closed around what it found decides what goes wrong with it: the tight one hurts, the hooked one obstructs, the open one leaks.

The 14 cards in this lesson

1. 01Three doors you can see
2. 02The bed, and a wrapping that is not uniform
3. 03Skin inwards: nerve, vein, artery
4. 04Clinical alert — in the lesson
5. 05The parotid has no lobes
6. 06Two ducts, actually measured
7. 07The hook: a gland folded over a free edge
8. 08On hyoglossus: three above, one below
9. 09Two hollows and one line
10. 10Clinical alert — in the lesson
11. 11Why stones go one way and tumours the other
12. 12Directions you must not reverse
13. 13Nothing inside these glands belongs to them
14. 14A lump at the angle of the jaw

You have got it when

You are ready when you can say what lies at each depth inside the parotid, examine a submandibular gland with two hands and know what you are feeling for, and explain why a stone goes to one gland and a tumour to the other.