A 4-year-old boy woke up with the left side of his face swollen, and it hurt too much to eat breakfast. The day before, his 5-year-old cousin had slapped him on the cheek during unsupervised play. According to the doctors who treated him, the slap was delivered with "minimal force."
Emergency physicians in Jordan traced the swelling to his parotid gland, the largest salivary gland, and concluded that the minor blow had inflamed it. The team, from Jordan University of Science and Technology and other institutions, described the case in the peer-reviewed journal Open Access Emergency Medicine, published Sept. 5, 2026.
