Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-06-24
Exit the SPLEEN


If he was down and threatening to go out,
family convocation brought in the local
doctors to estimate his chances, and take
action accordingly. AS soon as they reached
throat, so to speak, and squeezed it dry.
This they did with the aid of cathartics.
| The cathartic era, as it may be known to
history, saw the birth of more kinds of liver
poisons than the shelves Of an ordinary drug
store could hold. Men accumulated great
fortunes by legalized assaults on the public
liver. Society carried it's pellets as now it
carries it's vanity box. But when it became
apparent that the little round pill not
complete success for the sluggish
liver, and men obstinately developed
pains farther down, some one dug up a
defective appendix, and science was off on
a new trail. Drug stores swept the pills
to the back of the shelf, and used the front
space to display attractive blue steel and
silver plated hardware, gas bags, antisep-
moval became a feature in all the papers, q
social fad. The woman who retained her
appendix was ostracized as vulgar and men
who could not show scar over on the star
board side of their tummies suffered in their
credit. The humblest little doctor soon
caught the trick and hospitals became
nId
appendix was the standard charge.
The doctor cut everything but the price
All went merrily along with the loss OF
than an occasional patient from "complica-
lions" No appendix operation has ever yet
slain a victim, but complications reaped q
CHASTITY harvest.
Then appendices began to get scarce, for
you can remove mans appendix only once.
Patients, men who had been deprived of
theirs became, for the family DOCTORS what
the bankers term frozen assets. They could
not be realized in time Of need The
appendix era drew toward its close. The
real seat Of most human troubles was dis
covered to be the tonsils. There was a
rush for the tonsils. Out they came from
cid and young, those deadly poison centers.
celebrate the wonderful advance of
science But the tonsl era waned also, for,
while X-raying around it was discovered
that a man whose liver had been wrecked,
appendix extirpated and tonsils removed,
was really suffering from abscessed teeth.
To the profession this was a discovery al
| most as exciting the advent of radio
broadcasting The dentists pricked up their
ears and laid in enormous stocks of novo-
the front to swap their old teeth for brand
new sets, paying boot cheerfully.
For teeth were the unmarked enemies of
the human race How Ma lived to be so,
how Pa triumphantly outlived most of his
children were no longer mysteries; they
lost their teeth early.
Aud now, in the very middle of the teeth
era here comes the celebrated Doctor Mayo,
of Rochester and says the real danger to
the race is not in the liver, nor the tonsils
nor the teeth, at all, but down in the
spleen
can enlarged Spleen" he told his fellow
sui geons may in a measure supplant the
diseased appendix the operating table.
The chronically enlarged spleen must be re-
garded as a menace, and it rests with the
phvsician to show why it should not be
removed
'rrhe spleen in such a condition is dan
gerous because of it's excessive destruction
OF red cells that carry oxygen from the
! lungs to the body tissues, aid the blood
plasms In carrying carbon dioxide to the
lungs for exhalation, and transport vital
substances to the tissues.
zone of the proper functions of the
spleen is the destruction OF deteriorated
blood cells When it is enlarged this de-
struction may become excessive and produce
a chronic anaemia that leads to death di-
rectly or indirectly"
There it is in black and white. Who will
contradict man like Doctor Mayo? Who
wants to? The spleen has been with a
! long time and has often been suspected OF
unfriendliness. Shakespeare seemed to
sense it; other writers were dimly con
scious of it. Now DR.. Mayo has turned his
thumb down. Exit the spleen.
The man of the future will be gathered
to his fathers as was the man OF the past
but it will be indeed a wise father that rec
opnizes his own child after the nruDiD 2