sed, more
reliable, and more resourceful than one which, like the lung or the
appendix, has, as it were, a "character" of only about one-tenth of that
length. However this may be, the curious fact confronts us that
scattered about through the body are structures and fragments, the
remains of organs which at one time in our ancestral career were, under
the then existing circumstances, of utility and value, but have now
become mere survivals, remnants,--in the language of the day, "back
numbers." Some of these have still a certain degree of utility, though
diminished and still diminishing in size and functional importance, like
our third molars or "wisdom" teeth, our fifth or "little" toes, our
gall-bladder, our coccyx or tail-bone, the hair-glands scattered all
over the now practically hairless surface of our bodies, and our once
movable ears, which can no longer be "pricked," or laid back. These,
though of far less utility and importance than they obviously were at
one time, still earn their salt, and, though all capable of causing us
considerable annoyance on slight provocation, seldom give rise to
serious trouble or inconvenience. There are, however, a few of these
"oversights" which are of little or no known utility, and yet which,
either by their structure or situation, may become the starting-point of
serious trouble.

The best known members of this small group are the openings through the
abdominal wall, which, originally placed at the strongest and safest
position in the quadrupedal attitude, are now, in the erect attitude, at
the weakest and most dangerous, and furnish opportunity for those
serious and sometimes fatal escapes of portions of the intestines which
we call hernia; the tonsils; and our friend the _appendix vermiformis_.

For once its name expresses it exactly. It _is_ an "appendix," an
afterthought; and it is "_vermiformis_," a worm-like creature,--and,
like the worm, will sometimes turn when trodden on. Its worm-likeness is
significant in another sense also, in that it is this very
diminutiveness in size--the coils into which it is thrown, the spongy
thickness of its walls, and the readiness with which its calibre or its
circulation is blocked--that is the fundamental cause of its tendency to
disease.

The cause of appendicitis is the appendix.

"Despise not the day of small things" is good pathology as well as
Scripture. Here we have a little, worm-shaped tag, or side branch, of
the food-tube,