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Updated: May 19, 2025
The tonsils and adenoids, the appendix vermiformis and probably a few other parts of the human anatomy would be extirpated in early youth under compulsion of the health departments.
Easily first among these trouble-breeding remnants is that famous, or rather notorious, scrap of intestine, the appendix vermiformis, an obvious survival from that peaceful, ancestral period when we were more largely herbivorous in our diet and required a longer and more complicated food-tube, with larger side pouches in the course of it, to dissolve and absorb our food.
The appendix vermiformis seems to be a useless remnant of anatomical structure transmitted to us from a lower animal condition. At least such is the interpretation which scientists generally give to this hurtful and dangerous tube-like blind channel in connection with the bowels. That it becomes easily inflamed and is the occasion of great loss of life can not be doubted.
It is ridiculous to assume that the small, flabby uterus of an anemic woman can block the rectum and cause disease, but it is an excellent talking point, as effective in bringing victims to the operating table as appendicitis with its fairy tales of seeds and foreign bodies lodging in the appendix vermiformis.
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.
Correspondence schools for the taming of bronchos are as naught; and treatises on the gentle art of wooing are of no avail follow nature's lead. Grammar is the appendenda vermiformis of the science of pedagogics: it is as useless as the letter q in the alphabet, or the proverbial two tails to a cat, which no cat ever had, and the finest cat in the world, the Manx cat, has no tail at all.
"The autopsy developed a quantity of grape seed and popcorn, filling the lower enlarged pouch of the colon and the opening into the Appendicula Vermiformis. This, from the mortified and blackened condition of the colon alone, indicated that my diagnosis was correct.
"In 1880 I lost a patient with inflammation of the bowels, and requested of the friends the privilege of holding a post-mortem examination, as I was satisfied that there was some foreign substance in or near the Ileo-coecal valve, or in that apparently useless appendage, the Appendicula Vermiformis.
Grammar is the appendenda vermiformis of pedagogics: it is as useless as the letter q in the alphabet, or as the proverbial two tails to a cat, which no cat ever had, and the finest cat in the world, the Manx cat, has no tail at all. "The literary style of most university men is commonplace, when not positively bad," wrote Herbert Spencer in his old age.
But at about this point, for some reason, possibly connected with the increasing variety and improved quality and concentration of the food, due to greater intelligence and ability to obtain it, this large cæcum became unnecessary, and began to shrivel. Here, however, is where nature makes her first afterthought mistake. And behold the modern appendix vermiformis, with all its fatal possibilities!
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