Under the title "acute surgical parotiditis" may be grouped all acute inflammations of the parotid gland except that occurring in mumps.

The condition has been written about under many other names. It should not be called secondary parotiditis, for it occurs also as a primary disease. The names "septic," "gangrenous," "suppurative," "phlegmonous" or "necrotic" describe only various phases of the one disease—differences in degree of inflammation. "Postoperative" is no more appropriate than "postpneumonic," since the disease occurs after a great number of other conditions—Custer enumerated some twenty-five, and the same disease occurs in those otherwise healthy (Nicol). It has been called sympathetic parotiditis because it was known to occur after injuries to the testicle and sometimes after even slight operations on the genitourinary tract, e. g., passing of a sound, placing of a pessary or catheterization of the bladder (Paget). Later, when surgeons began to operate in the abdomen,