The body which is known as the third, pharyngeal, or better, epipharyngeal tonsil, and when hyperplastic, as adenoids, is situated at the superior part of the posterior wall of the epipharyngeal space, and constitutes the upper portion of Waldeyer's ring, the median and lower portions of which are completed respectively by the faucial and lingual tonsils, the whole being connected by a system of delicate lymphatic vessels and nodes.
While the honor of first disclosing the local and remote significance of adenoids belongs to Wilhelm Meyer, first in 1868, then in 1873, their existence can hardly be said to have been altogether unknown to the ancient writers. Although he was ignorant of the real cause, Hippocrates, in the 7th Book of Epidemics, gives the clinical picture of adenoids with the concomitant ear discharge, headache, irregularity of the teeth, V-shaped palate, etc. We may gather from Celsus that the effects of