Saliva

I'm interested in finding out "recipes" for synthetic saliva.  I'm
planning on using this to clean dirt from a marble sculpture.

    **** Moderator's comments: There has been some interesting
    literature on this topic, as a search of AATA will confirm. See
    especially

        Romao, Paula M.S., Alarcao, Adilia M., Viana, Cesar, A.N.
        Human saliva as a cleaning agent for dirty surfaces
        Studies in conservation
        Vol 35, Number 3, August 1990, pp. 153-155

        The AATA abstract says:

        The use of human saliva to clean dirty surfaces has been an
        intuitive practice for many generations. The authors have
        established the scientific basis for this practice by means
        of qualitative tests and chromatographic techniques. The
        main constituent responsible for the cleaning power of
        saliva was found to be alpha-amylase and therefore amylasic
        preparations obtained from bread or from microorganisms were
        tested as saliva substitutes.

Sanchita Balachandran


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 15:72
                  Distributed: Tuesday, April 23, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-15-72-015
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