Vallecula
An anatomic term for a crevice, furrow or depression. There are a variety of valleculae including one in the brain, another in the nail matrix, etc. However, used alone, the term “vallecula” usually applies to the epiglottic vallecula, a depression just behind the root of the tongue between the folds in the throat.
“Vallecula” is the diminutive of the Latin “valles”, valley so that a vallecula is literally a little valley.
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Italian anatomist and pathologist, physician and surgeon (1666-1723), perhaps best known for the Valsalva maneuver. Valsalva described and depicted even the smallest muscles and nerves of the ear, subdividing the ear into its internal, middle, and external parts, and he showed an original method of inflating the middle ear (Valsalva maneuver). Valsalva coined the term […]
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