Hypostatic congestion of the lungs is liable to occur in the aged and in debilitated patients; it is a complication in such cases always to be guarded against. Embolic pneumonia is the most serious form, and occurs as a sequel to operations for septic conditions, such as pyosalpinx, suppurating ovarian cysts, septic fibroids, and post-operative sepsis; it is also associated with thrombosis, especially when the pelvic veins contain septic clot. In the preceding section attention was drawn to the appearance in intra-abdominal blood-effusions of a white staphylococcus: such collections of blood are prone to decompose and cause the temperature to rise. On several occasions in which blood has been effused freely into the pelvic cavity, either as a consequence of tubal pregnancy, or as a sequel to an operation, such as an abdominal myomectomy, and the blood has been allowed to remain, or it has been inefficiently drained, the patients have died from septic pneumonia. In cases of septic thrombosis the patients run a definite risk from pulmonary embolism. When the embolus is large the patient sometimes dies in a few minutes (see p. 101); but even in cases where the embolus is too small to promptly destroy the patient’s life, its lodgment in the lungs entails in some instances a very serious illness, and occasionally a fatal termination. =Parotitis.= Septic parotitis, or, as it is sometimes called, symptomatic or secondary parotitis, to distinguish it from mumps, is an occasional sequel to abdominal operations of all kinds. Careful observations have shown that parotitis is more common after operations for septic conditions, and, although it occasionally occurs after operations which run an afebrile course, the conditions underlying it are mainly septic in character. Septic parotitis is distinguished from mumps in the following points:-- It occurs as a complication of some other affection, is in itself non-contagious, and occasionally suppurates. There are two views held in regard to its etiology: some hold that it is due to direct infection of the duct (Stenson’s) of the parotid gland by micro-organisms from the mouth, whilst others maintain that the path of infection is mainly by the blood-stream. Two able investigations have recently been published in regard to this condition, in which one writer (Bucknall) supports the view that it is an ascending affection from the mouth, and the other (Tebbs) brings forward evidence that the elements of infection reach it by the blood-stream. Lequeu has seen many cases of post-operative parotitis, and at his suggestion Verliac and Morel investigated the condition in the laboratory. They came to the conclusion that this variety of parotitis originates in the ducts of the gland.