Quote:
Originally Posted by ZeldaQueen
I heard my Biology class that it was something to do with helping us digest leaves (I can't remember too well. Don't remember much from 10th grade).
Wikipedia here says that Darwin theorized that the appendix was used to help primative man digest leaves. It also is theorized that the appendix is somehow useful to fetuses and adults (not sure how).
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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.