PRESERVE THE APPENDIX.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9377, 22 February 1909, Page 6

PRESERVE THE APPENDIX.

A LONDON DOCTOR'S DEPENCE. ' London, January 8. Dr. O. B. Keetley, senior surgeon to the West London Hospital, read a paper before the snrgioal section of the Royal Society of Medicine, strongly condemning the removal of the appendix. Sir William Mao Ewen, Dr. Eeetley observed, iiad demonstrated that the appendix has physiological uses, possibly, if not probably, of considerable importance, and that it is not the useless, merely vestigial organ it has been represented. It has also a potential snrgioal value which appears greater the more experience one gains of the removal of the appendix and the clearer one’s insight becomes into a class of abdominal and other troubles which, among adults of various ages, and especially of the female sex, are exceedingly common. Dr. Keetley has already at least twice been unable to attempt this operation in cases in which it was indicated, because the appendix had been previously removed. In one of thes cases the excised appendix was practically healthy. There is further the striking possibility suggested by a biologist so eminent as Professor Metchnikoif, that the appendix is useful in stavihg off or postponing the degeneracy of old age. What Dr. Eeetley urges, therefore, is that “we should preserve appendices instead of sacrificing them—i.e., in all favourable cases transplant them instead of amputating them. An appendix transplanted into the abdominal wall need not be used for an append!* costomy at the time; but it is there if ever it should be wanted.” Appendicitis, he points out, in introducing a summary of the cases reported, is a dangerous disease, not because of the nature of the appendix, but because of its posi-, tion. Its dangerous, and even its serious troublesome results, are due to its relation to the peritoneal cavity. It becomes, however, a trivial malady when the appendix is securely imbedded in the substance of the abdominal wall, and Dr. Keetley quotes a number of oases in which this operation restored the appendix to health and usefulness, the inference he draws being that “an appendix transplanted is an appendix disarmed. ”