WHEN a patient presents himself to his physician with swelling or tenderness of one or another of the salivary glands, too often he is treated symptomatically with no attempt to establish the underlying cause. With this consideration in mind, this paper was written with the dual purpose of stimulating interest in the subject and providing a more complete classification of disorders peculiar to the salivary glands. In table 1 is outlined a proposed classification of these disorders.
Reference to the salivary glands should include not only the parotid, submaxillary and sublingual glands but also the accessory salivary glands of the mucosal surface, viz., buccal, labial, incisive, palatine and lingual. The major salivary glands secrete intermittently and do so when nerve impulses reach them, whereas the accessory salivary glands secrete almost continuously.
A. CONGENITAL ABNORMALITIES
The epithelium of the salivary glands arises as outpouchings from that part of the mouth which