Studies of Salivation in Depression

It has been pointed out elsewhere¹that objective clinical study of both psychological and somatic manifestations of mental illness are necessary to delineate diseases as they occur in nature and not as they are necessarily classified by man. In the psychophysiological states known as depression, psychic and somatic disturbances are more complicated than the psychomotor retardation frequently assumed.²Though direct observation of physiological changes in depressed states has been reported, psychopathology of depression has received much more emphasis and study. Renewed interest in specific physiological changes associated with depression has occurred with the reexploration of disturbances of salivation in depressed patients. Twenty years ago the pioneering work of Strongin and Hinsie³and Winsor⁴,⁵focused on the collection of saliva from the parotid gland using the Lashley suction cup technique. It was shown that patients with depression salivate