Sometimes, before the symptoms appear, people experience preliminary symptoms, including fever, malaise, sore throat, or headache.
In most cases, the first sign of mumps is a swelling in the parotid glands; occasionally, mumps may begin with a slight fever, headache, and malaise before the swelling appears.
Malaise (a general feeling of physical discomfort), loss of appetite, fever, and loss of energy are examples of constitutional symptoms.
A more severe and less common variety of serum sickness includes several of the following symptoms: malaise, protein in the urine, joint pains, swelling of mucous membranes with hoarseness and cough, vertigo, nausea, and vomiting.
Socialist accounts argued that this physical malaise was compounded by the role of clothing in effecting oppressive social stratification; clothes were seen as masking the innate equality of all people.