Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1907 — NO LONGER GOOD FORM. [ARTICLE]

NO LONGER GOOD FORM.

People In High Society Say Appendicitis Is Vulgar Disease. The fashionable valetudinarian is threatened with a distinct bereavement. Appendicitis has been declared to be bad form, and those who wish to preserve a true social eminence must on no account suffer from it. There was a time when only the educated suffured from appendicitis, because only tion of the appendix, but in these days of vulgar equality even the washerwoman knows where to put her finger when she is asked where the pain is. As a result the supergilded must find a new disease into whose domain the great unwashed have not yet found their way. An eastern scribe has made inquiries from prominent physicians and the worst rumors are confirmed. One great authority admits that but few operations are now necessary, and that “we are glad to send our patients from the surgical to the medical ward, where hot fomentations and a milk diet are prescribed.” A well-known nursing sister said frankly that appendicitis has become unfashionable, and she added unkindly that fashions in the medical world vary as much as In the showrooms of a stylish dressmaker. A well-known surgeon admitted that "appendicitis has followed the example of all fashionable crazes and is dying a natural death, and for no other reason than that the laundry lady has dared to imitate the duchess. "Needless to say, I am not alluding to genuine cases of the disease, but because the fashionable illness has been pronounced unfashionable the large contingent of hysterical patients have turned their attention to the creation of some new complaint.” Perhaps it would help a little in getting rid of the pest if every one included in his spring medicine a little dandelion tea.