Parts!

March 2nd, 2024| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

A recent health report from National Public Radio interviewed an evolutionary anatomist, Dr. Heather Smith, about the appendix. She is professor of anatomy at Midwestern University and editor-in-chief of a journal called The Anatomical Record.

Yes, the appendix has a bad rap as a useless organ that can cause you pain and require emergency surgery at the most inopportune and embarrassing moments.

The fact that humans can live quite happily and peacefully without said organ provides support for the idea that it’s vestigial and it doesn’t really do anything critical to life. Darwin promoted that idea. But now with modern technology, we can see things like the microanatomy and the biofilms in the appendix, and we have a better understanding of what it is and what it’s doing.

Said Smith:

It turns out that the appendix appears to have two related functions. For one, the appendix has a high concentration of immune tissue, so it’s acting to help the immune system fight any bad things in the gut.”

This, of course, has been known for a while. But the other?

Smith, again:

The second function that it serves is what we refer to as the safe house. The appendix may serve as a safe reservoir for the beneficial gut bacteria that we have.”

Interesting. Apparently, during times of gastrointestinal distress, lots of your good gut bacteria is getting flushed out of the system. But then comes Hero Appendix, this blind tube with a very narrow diameter and narrow lumen. And so the bugs (the good ones) hide out there during this time of tumult and turbulence, and later exit their safe haven and recolonize the rest of the gut.

Concluded Smith:

So the appendix is kind of helping us in two ways, both within the gut: It’s helping to fight off invading pathogens, but also to repopulate the gut with this beneficial bacteria after gastrointestinal issues.”

Smith was asked by the NPR host what she had gained from studying this “weird little organ.”

She replied:

Anatomy is just the study of the body, so you’d think that it’s a dead science. You’d think we know everything about the body, especially the human body. But it turns out that there is actually a lot more variation and function and microanatomical adaptations that haven’t been fully realized. So just … looking at small parts of our own bodies that haven’t been well documented is absolutely worthwhile.”

“Absolutely worthwhile” also is the study of body parts—and they figure a lot in the Psalms (talking of which, BTW, see this).

There is, for instance, the psalmist’s challenge to Yahweh in Psalm 26 to come to his aid because he has been faithful to deity. Almost every verse has a direct reference or allusion to a part of the body—I’ll let you guess the body parts—he claims he has maintained integrity.

Judge for me, Yahweh, for I—in my integrity I walk, …
Try me, Yahweh, … refine my innards and my heart.
For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes,
and I walk in Your truth.
I do not sit with deceitful people ….
I shall wash my palms in innocence ….
That I may cause to be heard, with the voice, thanksgiving ….
Do not take away with sinners, my soul,
and with people of bloodshed, my life.
In whose hands is a wicked plan,
and their right hand is full of bribery.
But I—in my integrity I will walk ….
My foot stands on a level place;
in the assemblies I will bless Yahweh.
Psalm 26:1–7, 9–12

With all our body parts, let’s do so!

SOURCE: National Public Radio