The Useful Appendix

Since the dawn of modern medicine the vermiform appendix has seemed to be a completely useless organ. This week, the University of Chicago's Dr. Leon 0. Jacobson suggested that a use for the appendix may have been found.

Victims of radiation sickness (e.g., after an atomic bombing) are likely to die of anemia because the blood-building properties of the bone marrow are damaged. In everyday medical practice, X-ray dosages have to be worked out with utmost care to keep the patient from falling prey to radiation sickness. Treatment of cancer is often hampered by this limitation.

Experimenting on a rabbit, Dr. Jacobson found that when the spleen and appendix were protected with lead, the animal survived what would otherwise have been a fatal overdose of X rays. The undamaged spleen and appendix make enough blood to enable the damaged tissue to recover.

Since the rabbit trick required a major operation, it could not be tried on man. But it suggested to Dr. Jacobson that the organs which have the power to manufacture blood may contain a regulating hormone. He will try to isolate the hormone, in the hope that it may speed recovery from radiation sickness and permit X-ray patients to take heavier doses. Among the blood-forming organs he would include the "useless" appendix.

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