The nonchromaffin paraganglioma is a tumor that arises from the carotid and aortic bodies, from small islets of similar tissue normally located in the temporal bone along branches of the glossopharyngeal nerve in the middle ear (Jacobson's nerve), and along branches of the auricular branch of the vagus (Arnold's nerve) in the jugular foramen and temporal bone. Similar accumulations of this carotid body-like tissue lie on the nodose ganglion of the vagus and the ciliary body of the eye.1 The carotid and aortic bodies have a chemoreceptor function, but at the other sites this nonchromaffin tissue has no fune tion that we know (Fig. 1). Guild2 first described as a glomus jugularis a small 0.5 mm. collection of carotic body-like cells which lay in the middle ear in close association with the Jacobson's branch of the ninth nerve. Glomus jugulare Vagus n. Glossopharyngeal n. Carotid body Tympanic n. and paraganglion