Wednesday

Appendix

Before turning to interesting appendix facts, let’s have basic information about this vestigial organ of the body. What is appendix definition? Literally speaking, an appendix is something added on to something else as an appendage. Are you really confused? Have you seen the appendix in the books? The appendix of a book is a collection of specific pages, containing additional information, in the end of the book. In this case, the appendix is added to the regular pages.

According to biological appendix definition, it is a finger like growth at the junction between small and large intestine. It has a blind end which means anything entering into it cannot come back. This organ is of no particular use to humans. However, appendix is still functional in the grazing animals.

It is located at the junction where small and large intestines join each other, i.e. in the right lower abdominal quadrant. Find it somewhere between the top section of the pelvic bone and the navel area. Normally, we cannot determine the exact location of the appendix and even in the scanned image.

However, it is not clearly visible. You can locate this body organ in the specified abdominal chamber,
when the visceral organs in human body are at their normal positions. Physicians refer to such a condition as situs solitus. There is a congenital condition (i.e. situs oppositus) in which there is delocalization or reversing of the internal organs. So, in the rare cases of situs inversus, this vestigial
organ appears on the opposite side of the body.

In human body, the vestigial structure of appendix develops a collection with the cecum of colon. Do you know what side is your appendix on? You can find this tube-shaped pouch in lower right side of your abdomen. It is very small in size and looks like a worm. That is why, you may also call it "Vermiform Appendix" or simply "Vermix" which comes from Latin meaning "worm-shaped"

Resembling a small, hollow, finger-like tube, vermix is blind at one end while the other end opens into cecum of large bowel (or colon). On average, the length is about 11 centimeters, but it varies greatly from person to person, and can enlarge up to 20 cm.

As the free end has no opening, anything entering into it will remain there with no way to come out of it. The stagnation of food will cause inflammation of the organ along with severe pain. Physicians can relieve the symptoms only with its immediate surgical removal, or else the victim may die. 

A well-known disease of appendix is appendicitis. Do you know the appendix causes? In this case, some food particles, passing through gastrointestinal canal, get an accidental entry into this hollow structure with blind end. But there is no way for the food to come out of it.

Thus, the stagnation of organic material produces pus and toxic substances. Consequently, it leads to severe inflammation. If you do not address the condition timely, the swollen tube bursts open. It releases its harmful contents to the sensitive internal organs, and may even cause the death of the victim.