The Vermiform Appendix—Operating for Appendicitis—Expelling Power of the Vermiform Appendix—Care Exercised in Making Assertions—Reasoning Tests—A List of Unexplained Diseases—Concluding Remarks.
THE VERMIFORM APPENDIX.
At the present time more than at any other period since the birth of Christ, the medical and surgical world have centralized their minds for the purpose of relieving locally inside, below the kidney of the male or female, excruciating pain, which appears in both sexes in the region above described.
From some cause, possibly justifiable, it has been decided to open the human body and explore the region just below the right kidney in search of the cause of this trouble. Such explorations have been made upon the dead first. Small seeds and other substances have been found in the vermiform appendix, which is a hollow tube over an inch in length. These discoveries, as found in the dead subject, have led to explorations in the same location in the living. In some of the cases, though very few, seeds and other substances have been found in the vermiform appendix, supposed to be the cause of local or general inflammation of the appendix. Some have been successfully removed, and permanent relief followed the operation. These explorations and successes in finding substances in the vermiform appendix, their removal, and successful recovery in some cases, have led to what may properly be termed a hasty system of diagnosis, and it has become very prevalent, and resorted to by the physicians of many schools, under the impression that the vermiform appendix is of no known use, and that the human being is just as well off without it.
OPERATING FOR APPENDICITIS.
Therefore it is resolved, that as nothing positive is known of the trouble in the location above described, it is guessed that it is a disease of the vermiform appendix. Therefore they etherize and dissect down for the purpose of exploring, to ascertain if the guess is right or wrong. In the diagnosis this is a well-defined case of appendicitis; the surgeon's knife is driven through the quivering flesh in great eagerness in search of the vermiform appendix. The bowels are rolled over and around in search of the appendix. Sometimes some substances are found in it; but often to the chargrin of the exploring physician, it is found to be in a perfectly healthy and natural condition, and so seldom is it found impact with seeds or any substance whatever, that as a general rule it is a useless and dangerous experiment. The per cent of deaths caused by the knife and ether, and the permanently crippled, will justify the assertion that it would be far better for the human race if they lived and died in ignorance of appendicitis. A few genuine cases might die from that cause; but if the knife were the only known remedy, it were better that one should occasionally die than to continue this system, at least until the world recognizes a relief which is absolutely safe, without the loss of a drop of blood, that has for its foundation and philosophy a fact based upon the longitudinal contractile ability of the appendix itself, which is able to eject by its natural forces any substances that may by an unnatural move be forced into the appendix.[8]
EXPELLING POWER OF THE VERMIFORM APPENDIX.
To a philosopher such questions as this must arise: Has the appendix at its entrance a sphincter muscle similar in action to that of the rectum and œsophagus? Has it the power to contract and dilate?—contract and shorten in its length and eject all substances when the nerves are in a normal condition? And where is the nerve that failed to execute the expulsion of any substance that may enter the cavity of the appendix? Has God been so forgetful as to leave the appendix in such condition as to receive foreign bodies without preparing it by contraction or otherwise to throw out such substances? If He has He surely forgot part of His work. So reason has concluded for me, and on that line I have proceeded to operate for twenty-five years without pain or misery to the patient, and given permanent relief in all cases that have come to me. With the former diagnosis of doctors and surgeons that appendicitis was the malady, and the choice of relief was the knife or death, or possibly both, many such cases have come for Osteopathic treatment, and examination has revealed that in every case there has been previous injury to some set of spinal nerves, caused by jars, strains or falls. Every case of appendicitis, gall or renal stones can be traced to some such cause. These principles I have proclaimed and thought for twenty-five years.