As I stated the structure and function of an organ point to its possible maladies.  The cecum is the gate-way between the large and small intestines.  Its function of passing the contents of the small intestine into the large is obstructed much of the time.  It is constantly subjected to bruising, pressure, stretching, and obstruction, and is, therefore, more liable to be the seat of local inflammations than any other part of the bowels.  Diseases of this part of the bowels are liable to come at any time of the year; but in hot weather the tendency to fermentation is much greater than at other times of the year, and bodily resistance is reduced because of the enervating influence of the heat, of too long working hours, and of too short nights for sleep, and of the ever-present, omnipotent and omnivorous appetite which is taking into the stomach and bowels food beyond the digestive capacity both in quantity and quality; all these join in intensifying the habitual toxcicity of the bowel contents to such a state of virulence that those parts of the bowels already weakened, because of the mechanical injuries before referred to, take on a local inflammation.  Diarrhea may be the consequence and the bowels may have a thorough cleaning out and the whole trouble end in a few days.  Or the constipation may be of a nature that evacuations, such as the patient has been having, have been passing through the center, leaving a coating on the lumen, but hollowed out in the center.  When the inflammation starts causing increased bowel contractions—­peristalsis—­there is a breaking down of the walls of this fecal ring resulting in complete obstruction.  The ineffectual bowel contractions then serve to irritate and inflame the affected part still more.  The local inflammation is at first superficial but the increasing toxicity of the fluids that are held on these parts causes the inflammation to take on ulceration.

The inflammation or ulceration may remain superficial, and be located in the lower portion of the small intestine, then the disease is enteritis.  If the bowels are cleared out and the patient’s blood freed from intoxication, the attack ends; if not the disease will be called enteritis or catarrh.  If the infection is a little greater and extends a little deeper causes inflammation of Peyer’s glands then the type of the disease will be typhoid fever.

Children troubled with constipation will sometimes be taken with fever and pain in the right iliac fossa and, on examination, a fullness will be found; the sensitiveness will not be so great but that an examination can be made and a sausage shaped tumor may be outlined; of course, the disease will be named appendicitis and this is enough to scare a whole neighborhood, and the child will be carted off to a hospital and operated upon for appendicitis.