Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic TreatmentTilden, J. H. (John Henry)
Science
Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment
Tilden, J. H. (John Henry)
Appendicitis
About 1890 appendicitis began to attract the attention of those
surgically ambitious. The ovariotomy or celiotomy expert began to
feel the sting of envy and jealousy aroused by those who were making
history in the new surgical fad--appendectomy--and they got busy,
and, as disease is not exempt from the economic law of "supply
always equals demand," the disease accommodatingly sprang up
everywhere; it was no time before a surgeon who had not a hundred
appendectomies to his credit was not respected by the rank and file,
and an aspirant for entrance to the circle of the upper four hundred
could not be initiated with a record of fewer than one thousand
operations.
Thanks to the law of supply and demand the ovaries retired and gave
women a much needed rest. If they had continued to misbehave as they
had been doing before the appendix got on the rampage, the demand
for surgical work would have exceeded the supply of surgeons.
Diseases of all kinds are very accommodating; as soon as a
successful rival is well introduced they retire without the least
show of jealousy, showing that they are not strangers to the highest
ethics, their associations to the contrary notwithstanding.
There are many well written articles on appendicitis, but I believe
the monograph by A. J. Ochsner, M. D., is decidedly the best, and
when I refer to the best professional ideas on etiology, pathology,
symptomatology and treatment I have in mind the opinions set down by
Ochsner, for he has taken more advanced grounds in the medical
treatment of this disease than any other physician I know anything
about in this or any other country. If his "A Handbook on
Appendicitis" brought out in 1902, had come out three years before,
I should give him credit for being the first man on record to
proscribe the taking of food in appendicitis, but as my first
written advice on the subject was in the July, 1900, number of A
Stuffed Club,* two years before his book, I shall give myself the
credit for being the first physician to announce to the world _the
only correct plan of treating the disease and suggesting the
probable cause _which the intervening time has proven to be correct
The only reason I have for making this announcement is that in all
probability no one else will ever do so, and, as it is just and
right that I should have the credit, I do myself the honor. The
general rule is that if a new method of treatment comes out, or a
discovery of importance is made other than in the regular
professional channels, it will either be ignored or adopted (cribbed
is more expressive) and no credit given. This is a small matter, and
of no special consequence, yet it carries a meaning.
*(Editor's note: "A Stuffed Club" was the newsletter or journal
published by Dr. Tilden for many years.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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