The Necessity of Testis and Thyroid Hormones for the Maintenance of the Serous Tubules of the Submaxillary Gland in the Male Rat

Since the time, about a century ago, when research on the salivary glands began in earnest, most of the investigations dealing with these organs indicated that they were under the control of the nervous system (Babkin, 1944). Therefore, it came as a surprise to learn that the male sex hormone plays an important role in the maintenance of the serous tubules of the submaxillary glands of mice. This was first suspected by Lacassagne (1940a) when he found that this structure was far better developed in male than in female mice. Later he showed that the extirpation of the testes produced the atrophy of the serous tubules, while testosterone injections restored them to a normal condition (Lacassagne, 1940b). These effects were accompanied by changes in the enzymatic content of saliva. Thus, the ability of saliva to liberate glucose from starch was greater in males than in females, decreased by castration in males, and increased by testosterone injections in females (Raynaud and Rebeyrotte, 1949a, 1949b).