Somogyi1 and Gray, Probstein and Heifetz2 recently reviewed the subject of blood diastase and its clinical significance. The latter authors made the statement2b: "Elevated diastase values have been found in acute infection of the parotid gland, including some cases of mumps.3 In a small series of cases of mumps at the St. Louis City Isolation Hospital, no elevation of the blood diastase was found." We felt, however, that the extreme swelling of the parotid glands and their ducts, closing off the secretion from the mouth, would probably lead to rupture of the parenchymatous cells. The escape of the enzyme into the interstitial tissue and its subsequent absorption into the blood stream should lead to an increase in blood diastase at some time during the disease. Somogyi1 has expressed the same idea, and Polacco and Midana4 have shown it experimentally.
Accordingly, 35 patients with mumps,