The age-herald., 1901-03-24
OPERATIONS FOR
 DREAD APPENDICITIS

Dr. A. J. Davis in the Cincinnati En-
 quirer
 l read with unusual interest your ar lticle in today's paper headed Dread Ap- pendicitis." The caption was wrong. It should have been Dread Appendicitis Surgeons" There Is an epitaph in Mis- souri cemetery which reads as follows: He has left us. He's now among the
 blest;
 He got appendicitis and the doctors did
 the rest"
 From the records of deaths that have following the operation for appendicitis it ought to be made a crime for surgeon to perform It. There Is not case on re- cord where 1t can be positively shown that appendicitis, without an operation, ever caused death. Autopsies have shown diseased appendix. it is true. But defy the fraternity to show an instance where the inflammation or Suppuratton of an appendix disclosed by an autopsy is creditably recorded as the cause of the death.
 Every death on record directly accredt- ed to appendicitis is where an operation was performed. and 50 per cent of those operated on die. In every recorded case where death followed the operation the patient Is reported to have had appendi- citis. What an appalling record Of murderous fad confronts us when we LOOK up it's history! The vermiform appendix has been known to anatomists for cen turies Its use in the human organism was not and is not now known. No at tempt has ever been made to attribute II to theoretical use either in anatomy or physiology It was regarded among anat- omists as a suDernumerary, II IL was an organ Not until Darwin announced the theory of evolution was any attempt made to account for its presence aihohs the abdominal viscera-
 Evolutionists point it out as proof or their theory. They say it is parliamentary intestine the original of which became useless on account of the change In the physical conformation of man from the quadruped to the erect form: mere oeins no further use for the primitive colon it has disappeared with the exception Of the small nerveless. senseless, function less vermiform appendix,
 The same transformation took place with the tall of the beast, which IS now represented by a rudimentary tall at the inferior extremity of the vertebral col umn. which we call the coccyx. The yer inform appendix is to the intestine just what the coccyx Is to the skeleton ana according to the evolutionist the intes- fine that has left the one disappeared by the sample process and at the same time as the tail that left the other. The yer inform appendix has the least vitality or any mart of the whole viscena, yet the ignorant and dangerous novice with a knife is trying to tell the world that IL ls so dangerous that at the first suspicion of it's infiamed condition the patient should submit himself to an operauoh under which 50 per cent die.
 It is no less than murder, ana put hutie less than deliberate murder. It has only been within the last twenty-five or thirty years that the world ever heard of ap- pendicitis Then all at once 1t was uis- covered that grape seeds were the cause of it Then the butchers commenced 10 sharpen their knives. Some man or wo- man of a sedentary life would neglect their bowels A fullness and a pain would appear In the abdominal region. quart of warm water, a little soap ana a syringe would have cured 1t in ten minutes. But they call the surgeon; then the undertaken. He died of that awful malady, appendicitis. He had gone the grape seed route. It would have been more humane to have cut his throat. Death was equally certain, and would have been quicker and much less pam full.
 Legislatures will never do their duty until they stop the murderous practice by making it felony punishable by i'm prisonment in the penitentary The fad will go as it came, and within twenty years a surgeon who will go to ripping open a human being with meat ax to take out little senseless :emnaut of fast disappearing gut will be dealt with summarily. Open the columns of the En- quirer for the opinions of the public, pro- fessional and otherwise, who have had experience with appendicitis surgeons and 1t will be revelation to your read ers A. J. DAVIS, M. D.