METABOLISM IN THE SUBMAXILLARY GLAND 

 DURING REST AND ACTIVITY.* 



BT YANDELL HENDERSON. 



THE data at hand on the question whether, coincidently with 

 the elimination of their characteristic products, the salivary 

 glands take up nutriment during secretion, offer an apparent 

 contradiction. Histological changes and the decrease both in 

 weight and percentage of solids in an active gland indicate, as 

 Heidenhain expresses it, that " at definite times the cells absorb 

 from the blood or lymph definite substances ; these substances 

 are at definite times transformed ; and at definite times these 

 transformed substances are eliminated by the cells." f In 

 contrast to this view are the experiments of Pawlow.J His 

 investigation was performed upon dogs in which the chorda 

 tympani and sympathetic nerve supplying the left submaxil- 

 lary gland were severed. Secretion was excited in the right 

 submaxillary by electrical stimulation of both sciatic nerves, 

 for periods varying from one and a half to five hours. The 

 saliva obtained, as well as the active and resting glands, were 

 analyzed for nitrogen by the Kjeldahl method. Ten active 

 glands from the right side yielded 1.872 grams of nitrogen, and 

 the saliva secreted by them 0.416 gram a total of 2.288 grams 

 of nitrogen ; while the ten resting glands from the left side gave 

 2.177 grams of nitrogen. Commenting upon these figures, 

 Langley points out that they " are not such as we should ex- 

 pect from the microscopical appearance of the gland cells. . . . 

 The stimulated glands had lost during secretion about ^ of 

 their nitrogen-holding substance ; " the saliva secreted con- 

 tamed approximately ^ of the nitrogen of the resting glands, 



Reprinted from the Amer. Jour, of Physiol., vol. iii. 



t Heidenhain, Hermann's Handbuch der Physiologic, v, p. 58. 



t Pawlow, Centralblatt fur Physiologie, 1888, ii, p. 137. 



Langley, Schaefer's Textbook of Physiology, 1898, i, p. 488. 



