The Third or Oculomotor Nerve

The oculomotor nerve (N. oculomotorius) arises by several radicles from the basal surface of the cerebral peduncle, a little lateral to the interpeduncular furrow. It turns sharply outward and forward, crosses over the cavernous sinus, and continues above the maxillary nerve and in company with the ophthalmic nerve to the foramen lacerum orbitale. It emerges through the foramen with the latter nerve and the abducens and divides into two branches. The superior branch is short and divides into twigs which supply the rectus superior, retractor, and levator palpebræ superioris. The inferior branch (Figs. , ) is larger and much longer. It supplies the motor fibers to the ciliary ganglion (which lies directly on this branch in the horse) and short branches to the rectus internus and rectus inferior, and continues forward on the latter to end in the inferior oblique muscle.

The deep origin of the fibers of the oculomotor nerve is in the oculomotor nucleus situated in the gray matter of the floor of the cerebral aqueduct in the region of the anterior corpora quadrigemina.