Glomus and other tumours of the ear

The glomus jugulare is a collection of ganglionic tissue within the temporal bone in close relation with the jugular bulb. The first description of this tissue were probably by Valentin (1840), who described his 'ganglia tympanica', and Krause (1878), his 'glandula tympanica'. Both writers described ganglionic-like tissue, but the credit for recognizing the histological relationship to the carotid body goes to Guild in 1941. He originally called the structure the glomus jugularis, but in a later report (Guild, 1953) he accepted the terminology glomus jugulare accorded by Lattes and Waltner (1949). Lattes also suggested that the generic term for these structures in the body should be non-chromaffin paraganglia (any associated tumour being called a non-chromaffin paraganglioma).