The Perforated Appendix

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Abstract
Although an editorial in the Journal 20 years ago implied heady times approaching in the treatment of appendicitis,1 token recognition and no excitement greeted the 100th anniversary of the codification of the appendicitis syndrome last June.2 , 3 In 1886 the situation was different. Surgery was emerging from its dark days, when anesthesia permitted major operations but antisepsis was so imperfect that they often failed. Women's abdomens had been entered occasionally for treatment of ovarian cysts — men's abdomens rarely, on any pretext. For a pathologist-physician like Reginald H. Fitz2 , 3 to argue that the common and usually fatal disease called perityphlitis was . . .