APPENDICITIS THEORY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 43, 14 November 1907, Page 10

APPENDICITIS THEORY.

"Whether tho great' increase in cases of appendicitis is real and''due Ho sonic factor of modern methods of feeding and living, or apparently only, and due to greater skill in diagnosis, still remains an interesting question for debate," says the "Hospital." "In a case of appendicitis operated upon by Mr, Battle, a concretion was found to contain a small irregular fragment of iron, and Mr. v Battle suggests that minute particles of iron finding their .way'into the flour milled by fluted steel rollers may account for this increaso in appendicitis. Ho points out tliat the greater prevalence of appendicitis was first heard of in the United States, and only later, when so much of our flour came from over the seas, and when our own stone mills could no longor bo worked at a profit, was thoro any apparent increase of the disease in this country. Moreover, in America the increaso in appendicitis occurred first in the towns where rolled flour was first used, then it spread to the villages, and finally to the negroes, when flour became so cheap that it was more profitable to buy it than to grind the corn'at home. Should further investigation support this theory, it would become a question of public importance that proper methods' should be adopted to secure' tho elimination of all iron particles from the flour." '