The Nature of Man's Structural Imperfections1

Abstract

II. DARWIN regarded the appendix as one of man's vestigial structures, and Metchnikoff accepted this verdict without demur, although there were then anatomists, particularly Prof. R. J. Berry,15 who refused to regard the appendix as a useless structure. Every child is born with a fully and well-developed appendix which varies in length round a mean of 35 mm. Ribbert's investigations16 showed that amongst the Swiss the appendix has reached its maximum length, 97 mm., by the twentieth year; thereafter the average length falls slowly, so that by the sixtieth year it has become reduced to 85 mm. Prof. Berry17 found in the population of Edinburgh that the appendix did not attain its full length, 89 mm., until the fortieth year, falling to 83 mm. by the sixtieth year. Drs. Garcia and Salloza18 measured the length of the appendix amongst Philippinos—a people living chiefly on a vegetarian dietary. By the twentieth year the appendix of this people had attained a length of 81 mm.; its maximum length, 96 mm., was not reached until the fiftieth year, while the average length fell to 82 mm. by the seventieth year. An organ which increases in length until the twentieth year, or even until the fiftieth, does not merit the name vestigial.