A great deal of reflection and study has been devoted to the subject of lung abscess following tonsillectomy. At the present time there are two main theories of its origin. One is that the lung suppuration is usually due to the aspiration of adenoid or tonsil tissue, or of potentially infective blood and mucus, or the crypt content or any combination of these. The other is that a septic embolus becomes dislodged from one of the thrombosed vessels in the operative area, and finally settles in the lung where an abscess is initiated.
SYMPTOMS
We are all acquainted with the symptomatology of lung abscess following tonsillectomy. Briefly it is this: The patient may recall that immediately after operation he did not feel very well; or he may have felt perfectly well until the sixth to the fourteenth day, when he had a sudden pain in the chest and began to cough