BICARBONATE ELIMINATION THROUGH THE SALIVARY GLANDS UNDER NERVOUS AND CHEMICAL STIMULATION

¹ From the Department of Physiology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Tennessee, Memphis, and the Departments of Physiology and Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of Mississippi

1. The total CO₂ content of submaxillary saliva of the cat has been studied under chorda tympani, pilocarpine, and epinephrine stimulation along with the blood CO₂ values. The average values for a large series of experiments are 41.17 volumes per cent for saliva and 41.97 volumes per cent for arterial blood plasma under chorda stimulation, 64.36 volumes per cent for saliva and 34.50 volumes per cent for arterial plasma under pilocarpine, and 69.7 volumes per cent for saliva and 41.5 volumes per cent for arterial plasma under epinephrine.

2. These values show a preferential elimination of CO₂, most of it as bicarbonate, with pilocarpine and to a less extent with epinephrine stimulation, both in the intact animal and in a perfused organ.

3. Evidence is adduced to show that the excess CO₂ of the saliva, obtained by pilocarpine stimulation, is mainly derived from the blood plasma and is not respiratory in origin.

4. As a result of the preferential elimination of bicarbonate in the saliva, under pilocarpine, the plasma bicarbonate progressively falls. Attention is called to the pharmacologic importance of this fact.

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