Relationships between the parotid gland and the facial nerve during human development.

A correlation was sought between the organization of the parotid gland and the formation of the large vessels and nerves that passed through the glands of 12 human embryos and 12 human fetuses. There was no evidence that the gland became a bilobate structure as a result of the course of the facial nerve, whose interglandular branches were surrounded during development by the multidirectional ramifications of the expanding parotid anlage.