Let D be an infinite division ring, n a natural number and N a subnormal subgroup of such that or the center of D contains at least five elements. This paper contains two main results. In the first one we prove that each nilpotent maximal subgroup of N is abelian; this generalizes the result in Ebrahimian (2004) (which asserts that each maximal subgroup of is abelian) and a result in Ramezan-Nassab and Kiani (2013) . In the second one we show that a maximal subgroup of cannot be polycyclic-by-finite.