MUMPS 577 



staining structure was observed in great numbers in the blood of 

 infected men and in the eggs of infected ticks. These were not suc- 

 cessfully cultivated, but agglutinated with the serum of an immune 

 animal. Their relation to the disease has not been established. 



Mumps. Mumps or epidemic parotitis is a specific infectious 

 disease which is more commonly observed among children from four 

 to fifteen years of age, although younger children and adults are by 

 no means immune. The incubation period averages from seventeen 

 to twenty-eight days. It is probable that the infectious period begins 

 a few days about four before the characteristic syndrome appears, 

 and the disease is probably transmitted directly from person to per- 

 son through infected material from the nasopharynx. The mortality 

 is very low and cases that terminate fatally are generally very young 

 children and infants. 



The causative agent is not definitely known: a diplococcus has been 

 isolated from inflamed parotid glands by Laveran and Catrin 1 in 

 sixty-seven out of a total of ninety-two cases. Mecray and Walsh, 2 

 Michaelis and Bienn, 3 Busquet and Feri 4 have made similar isolations. 

 Teissier and Esmein 5 report the successful culture of a similar organism 

 from a case of suppurative parotitis. Herb 6 has also isolated a diplo- 

 coccus from a case of suppurative parotitis which ended fatally. Ani- 

 mal experiments with these cultures have not been convincingly posi- 

 tive. 



Nicolle and Conseille 7 and Gordon, 8 working independently, state 

 that fluid separated from the parotid glands of patients having mumps, 

 injected into the parotid glands of monkeys, reproduced a syndrome 

 strikingly like that of mumps in these animals. Gordon also found 

 that the virus retained its virulence after passage through a Berkefeld 

 filter. It is destroyed by a brief exposure to 55 C. It would appear 

 from his observations that the virus of mumps belongs to the group 

 of filterable viruses. 



1 Compt. rend., Soc. biol., 1893, 9 ser., v, 528. 



2 Medical Record, 1896, i, 440. 



s Verhandl. XV Kongress f. inn. Med., 1897, xv, 441. 



* Rev. d. Med., 1896, xvi, 744. 



5 Compt. rend. Soc. biol., 1906, Ix, 803, 853. 



e Arch. Int. Med., 1909, iv, 201. 



7 Compt. rend. Acad. sc., 1913, clvii, 340. 



8 Lancet, 1913, ii, 275. 



37 



