The removal of the principal salivary glands of cotton rats prior to maintenance on purified, caries-producing rations resulted in a significantly greater average number and average extent of carious lesions than was observed in their intact littermates maintained under otherwise identical experimental circumstances. No alteration in the relative distribution of the lesions with respect to the various tooth surfaces resulted from the removal of the major salivary glands.
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Shaw et al. (1949) studied this question.