Acute suppurative infection of the salivary glands remains a serious complication of ill elderly patients.A study of 41 cases of acute parotitis and submaxillitis seen during a seven-year period in a geriatric department of 256 beds indicates that drugs are often a causative factor.Antibiotics (especially broad-spectrum ones) and atropine-like drugs had been given to patients with sialitis far more often than would be expected. Among atropine-like drugs, pethidine and tricyclic antidepressants are added to the previously reported examples of provocative drugs. The view that diuretic therapy may induce sialitis receives no support.