The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-11-10

| mean removing the source. Whenever a
complete recovery is witnessed without
operation il is nature that cures.
1t is far better when there is good
ground for believing that appendicitis
exists to run the risks of operation than
to run the risks OF peritonitis. I'm that
| variety of the disease marked by regular
occurrences of slight attacks 1t is the bet
ter part of valor for the patient to go to
hospital during an interval between
| them, and SO have his cantankerous APP
pendix cut out under the best possible
conditions.
Such, at least, is the opinion of the
majority of the worlds most eminent
Decentralization English, Ger
man and French-today. But 1t must
be said in all fairness that there is also
| a respectable majority which holds tnat
surgery is resorted to with too great fire.
quency, and that nature and proper nurs-
| ing are capable of curing a large PRO
portion of cases. Prof. Dieulafoy, a
| Frenchman, insists that operations for
1 appendicitis are often performed upon
people who are really in the first stages
! OF typhoid fever. or have nothing worse
than a simple collie Doyen and other
dissenters make even more serious allie
cations.
This recalls the story of the American
who was subject to fits and feared that
while unconscious he would be hustled
| to hospital and relieved of his appen-
| dix To guard himself against this he
| carried in his pocket a paper reading:
| IF | am picked up on the streets please
don't cut out my appendix; 1t has been
removed twice already" Another Amer
| lean, after recovering from an operation
for appendicitis. had the following tat
tcoed over the scar: keep out; there's
noting inside
Those who oppose surgical interference
base their chief argument upon the fact
that appendicitis is a self-limiting and
self-curing disease. The leucocytes of
the blood, as we have seen, engage in q
| battle with the germs in the appendix
as soon as they appear, and under proper
conditions this battle is likely TO be sue
cessful.
In such cases the patients pain lessons,
hi stemperature falls his nausea 3isap-
| pears, and in q short while he is well
/ again. Sometimes the germs are wiped
ont entirely: at other times they spend
themselves in forming some sort Of "a
tuInor. which in the course of time VIII
be absorbed But it Is plain that a man
who has once had appendicitis has
| proved that his appendix is liable to the
disease, and that in consequence his
chances of having it again are above the
average. The only man who Is certainly
protected against it is he who has lost
his appendix.
| When the lencocytes are defeated in
| their battle and there Is no surgical in
reference, the diseased appendix becomes
more and more inhamed and the number
| OF germs in 1t increases enormously.
| Finally they break through its walls and
are scattered broadcast through the dD-
dominal cavity. Here they find immo-
diate Judgment In the peritoneum, the thin
nlemberane which incloses like a bag. the
whole contents of the cavity.
| The mebrane begins to grow inhamed
| and the condition that results may be
compared roughly to that observable IN
the mebranes of the nose during very
bad cold. The germs. being thus well
nourished and housed give forth their
characteristic poisons in immense guam
titles These poisons then disable the
heart and brain and the patient dies.
A pathologist named Fitz was the first