Mumps

Mumps, a popular name of a specific inflammation of the salivary glands described by nosologists as Cynanche Parotidea, or Parotitis. In Scotland it is frequently termed The Branks. The disorder usually begins with a feeling of stiffness about the jaws, which is followed by pains, heat, and swelling beneath the ear. The swelling begins in the parotid, but the other Salivary Glands (q.v.) usually soon become implicated, so that the swelling extends along the neck towards the chin, thus giving the patient a deformed and somewhat grotesque appearance. One or both sides may be affected, and in general the disease appears first on one side and then on the other. There is seldom much fever. The inflammation is usually at its highest point in three or four days, after which it begins to decline, suppuration of the glands scarcely ever occurring. In most cases no treatment further than antiphlogistic regimen, due attention to the bowels, and protection of the parts from cold, by the application of flannel or cotton-wool is required, and the patient completely recovers in a week or a fortnight. The disease is infectious; and the infection probably remains for at least a fortnight after apparent recovery. Like most infectious diseases, it seldom affects the same person twice. It chiefly attacks children and young persons. A singular circumstance connected with the disease is that in many cases the subsidence of the swelling is immediately followed by swelling and pain in the testes in the male sex, and in the mammæ in the female. The inflammation in these glands is seldom very painful or long continued, but is apt in the male to lead to permanent atrophy of the organ.