Abstract
During the period, about forty years ago, when Minkowski1 was establishing a probable relationship between the pancreas and diabetes, two Italian workers, de Renzi and Reale,2 reported diabetes in dogs following the extirpation of the salivary glands and of the duodenum. Minkowski felt that the removal of the duodenum could not be effected without at the same time materially damaging the pancreas. He repeated the experiments on the salivary glands and found a mild (from 1 to 3 per cent), inconstant, transient glycosuria after removal of these glands. He concluded that this glycosuria was nonspecific, that it was incidental to the operation or the anesthetic, and that the salivary glands had nothing to do with the control of the sugar metabolism. This is the view that, with very few exceptions, has prevailed regarding the function of the salivary glands. In 1907, Ferrannini3 reported a case of "salivary

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