Gelatinous edema; a pathognomonic sign in mumps.

Abstract

THE COMMONER infectious diseases of childhood are readily diagnosed, but few pediatricians have not been embarrassed at times. Except during epidemics, prespasmodic whooping cough is rarely suspected until the disease has been well distributed through home and school; mild scarlatinal rashes are easily confused with other erythemas, and children are often reported as having secondary attacks of measles, though the pediatrician would be rather certain that the earlier disease represented a postfebrile eruption. Mumps, in its classical form, is easily recognized, but when involvement of submaxillary or submental glands is not accompanied with parotid swelling, the condition is often confused with the adenitis following or accompanying apical abscess, throat infection or the early manifestation of infectious mononucleosis. As noted by Hempelmann:1 Mumps which is limited to the submaxillary or sublingual glands at times can only be diagnosed with certainty by the history of exposure, the further extension of the