MIXED salivary turnours may arise not only in the in size "tended to push outward between the mastoid three named major salivary glands, but also in minor and the ascending ramus of the mandible", to appear salivary glands of the lips, cheeks, palate, floor of externally "as a mass close up under the auricle", mouth, nasal cavity, and pharynx. Of these sites, it which is regarded as "an extension from the pharynis recognized that more arise in the palate than in geal tumour". any other structure of the head and neck except Such a view is no longer tenable following the the parotid gland (Martin, 1942) predominance is, however, such that only 5 mixed salivary tumours are palatal for every IOO found in the parotid (Willis, 1953).It has long been known that tumours arising primarily in the parotid gland may rarely produce a swelling in the lateral pharynx. Thus Stein and Geschickter (1934) found that of 113 cases of tumours of the parotid gland 7 (5.2 per cent) presented in the 'throat', the presenting symptom in 2 patients being dysphagia.Despite this, even recent publications have discounted the parotid gland as a source of mixed salivary tumours of the soft palate and faucial region.Thus, in a recent report (Havens and Butler, 1955) of 41 mixed salivary tumours of the pharynx, of which 7 also presented as external swellings in the parotid region, the belief is recorded that the latter were of primarily pharyngeal origin, but with increase *Present address: Plastic Surgery and Jaw Injury Unit, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury, Bucks. and Patey and Ranger (1957) into the surgical and pathological anatomy of the parotid gland.The parotid gland is ensheathed by the investing layer of cervical fascia, which provides a dense fibrous capsule on the superficial surface of the gland, but merely a tenuous areolar covering on its deep aspect. A tumour of the deep portion of the parotid (i.e., that part of the gland deep to the facial nervethe ' retromandibular lobe' of American writers) therefore tends to grow in the direction of least resistance, deeply into the parapharyngeal region by traversing the stylomandibular tunnel, an opening bounded above by the base of the skull, anteriorly by the ascending .ramus of the mandible and medial pterygoid muscle, and posteriorly by the styloid process and stylomandibular ligament. Having thereby reached the lateral or parapharyngeal space whose lateral wall (the ascending ramus of the mandible covered by the medial pterygoid muscle) and posterior wall (the carotid sheath attached to the base of skull above, and lying on the prevertebral muscles
