APENDICITIS AND THE RIDING HABIT.
Dr. Thomas W. Lauterborn, of Morristown, N. J. is authority for the statement that walking is a sure preventive of appendicitis. Dr. Lauterborn says: “When a man is active on his feet, when he is doing considerable walking, there is no danger of his having appendicitis, for the reason that the abdominal and intestinal muscles are kept continually active, and so are in good working order all the while. The jolting given to a man's interior economy when he walks causes the muscles of the abdomen, and the intestines to continually contract to offset the jar of his step, and thus they are all always in perfect condition. When the contractible function of intestinal organs is operative, the entrance to the appendix is always closed, hence the individual has no fear of appendicitis. On the other hand when a man begins to take to the trolley-car, the steam-car, and to the carriage in making his daily trips, he loses all that jolting which is necessary as a tonic to the muscular walls of his abdomen and intestines. So when we see a man begin to get flabby and pot-bellied, we immediately say that there is a good subject for appendicitis.” Commenting upon the Morristown physician's statement, the Des Moines Register and Leader says: “There are certainly ample statistics and deductions to support Dr. Lauterborn's theory. Appendicitis has increased to an alarming extent within the past decade. It has become almost a ‘fad,’ if disease and suffering can ever said to be a fad. Hundreds of operations are performed for appendicitis to-day where one was a rarity a score of years ago. It may simply be an interesting coincidence, but appendicitis and the trolley-cars have been companions in development throughout the careers of both. Dr. Lauterborn does not maintain that appendicitis is anything like that form of nervousness that's induced by the electric current through the car trolley, concerning which expert neurologists have been worrying the public in recent years. He does not lean toward the microbe theory. If horse-cars had ever reached that stage of progress where they were as fast as a man on foot, appendicitis would have resulted just as it has in the electric-car age. It's the riding, not the electricity.” In support of his theory, Dr. Lauterborn says that appendicitis flourishes in the cities, while it is comparatively unknown in the country, and the Register and Leader adds: “Men ride to work, ride home in the evening, sit in an office, sit at home; in a few years they are operated upon for appendicitis. Men walk the plowed fields, the country roads, and the cow paths; they are healthy, happy, and ignorant of appendicitis. It is only when they retire from the farm, are introduced to the trolley-car, and the automobile that they emulate their city-bred cousins, and are operated upon. There is no nation on the earth more healthy than the English. Walking is a national pastime with them. Appendicitis is virtually an American disease. There is no nation which sends its city men, day after day, with such monotonous regularity, on trolley or steam-cars, to and from work, as the American.”