Image TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage Tile
Image size: 4608x6144 Scale: 35% - PanoJS3
Page overview thumbnail

Article text

APPENDICITIS VICTIMS.
A.N INCREASING
MALADY.
The idea that appendicitis is merely ft
fashionable disease is liko'ma&y another
popular notion-a fallacy. It ie a complaint
which is prevalent at the present
time both among the rich and the poor,
as tho statistics of the great London
hospitals prove. Nor is the general be
lief that it is a uew disease, manufactured
by modern Burgeonb, any more correct.
Only recently during some excavations in
Egypt a mummy was brought to light
upon whioh the doctors made further excavations,
and at this strange mortem it
wasdUoovered that the cause of death, at
least two thousand years age, must have
been appendicitis.
To come down to more modern times t
though to ft date sufficiently Jong ago for
the matter to be regarded as an old one,
it may be mentioned that Addison published
& book on appendicitis in 168G. In
those days the complaint with all its
variations was comparatively a rare one,
and usuflJiy was referred to as typhlitis or
perityphlitis. And by these names it 'was
commonly known tiil about three years
ago, when its rapidly increasing preval
ence necessitated its close study.
Up to about 1898, indeed, the reports of
tbo various hospitals contain no mention
of tbo word appendicitis, speaking only of
perityphlitis. Why, during the iast few
'Gars, the complaint has increased by
{eaps and bounds, not even the greatest
authorities can explain. Tho majority of
the medical text books are silent as to its
causes; 'even the " Encyclopaedia
Erit&nnica" makes no mention of them.
Yet the theories on the matter are many,
and most of the doctors differ. The
majority of them, however, agree tbat tho
old theory that appendicitis could be set
up by swallowing a cherry stone is untenable,
for the simple reason that the
appendix—that unaccounted-for little col. I
de>sac in one's interior organisation—is
not large enough to admit of such
intrusion,
VICTIMS OF IMAGINATION.
It may bo caused by some hard matter
lodging in the intestines, by a blow, or
even by imagination 1 At least one
authority, speaking of the matter recentiy,.
declared that many of those who
were operated on were not really Buffering
from the complaint'at all, but that they
worried themselves into the belief that
they were, and would not be satisfied
until they had had their appendix removed.
Meantime, however obscure Its causes
may be,appendicitis is increasing by leaps
and bounds, and all classos are being
affected. The list of its victims includes
the most distinguished names, from the
Eing down to the latest well-known case
—that of Lady Dudley.
$