Originally Posted by Colonel Flagg (Post 594570)

During times of extreme illness (cholera, dysentery) the intestinal flora effectively are "flushed away" - a theory states that in more primitive times (before antibiotics and antivirals) the appendix provided a "safe haven" for a few hundred million or so of the little buggers so that when the body gets better, the gut would be repopulated naturally.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.