a. Anat. [f. Vidus Vidius, Latinized form of the name of Guido Guidi, an Italian anatomist (died 1569).] The special designation of certain anatomical features of the head, as Vidian artery, canal, nerve.
1831. R. Knox, Cloquet’s Anat., 39. The posterior orifice of the vidian canal. Ibid., 473. The superficial petrous filaments of the vidian nerve. Ibid., 663. The Vidian or Pterygoid Artery.
1840. E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M. (1842), 279. The Vidian branch passes backwards along the pterygoid canal.
1875. Turner, in Encycl. Brit., I. 824/1. At the root of the pterygoid processes is the vidian canal, for the transmission of a nerve of the same name.
1886. Buck’s Handbk. Med. Sci., II. 328/2. A small nerve … goes to the spheno-palatine ganglion, and, after being joined by a branch from the carotid plexus, is known as the Vidian nerve.
