Leo, my Havens dog (by the way, we havens
owners are an uppity bunch and always use the word “havens” when referring to
our “dog” so that you don’t think we are owners of a Shih-Tzu or Deputy Dawg)
wears his emotions on his butt. Happy, and his tail becomes a weapon of mass
destruction. Sad and it wilts like a Viagra failure. Excited and it becomes a
merry-go-round game to pursue, Frightened and it somehow makes him look bigger
like a fuzzy toy rabbit, albeit a fierce-someone, of course.
Dr Dave Hepburn how important is a tail to us
bipeds? In fact, what is your most useless organ? (My wife’s response was “What
or who?”) Turns out we have several organs and tissue that are vestigial, just
junk in our trunk. Useless, useless, useless, Trump, useless...or are they?
Coccyx
The tailbone, more fun to call
coccyx if you’re a ten year old tempting your naughty vocabulary, is a
collection of five fused (or sometimes separate) vertebrae. These fused
vertebrae are the only vestiges that are left of the tail that other mammals
still use for balance (cheetah), communication, (lions) and, for some primates
in Africa and DC, as a prehensile limb. However, the coccyx, unlike Washington,
isn’t completely useless. It allows ligaments, tendons, and muscles to attach
to it that have a few important functions, including the role it plays in
enabling us to sit properly. The coccyx used to be removed when people injured
them but nowadays it is rarely taken out.
There are cases of infants born with
extra vertebrae, giving those tails. There are no real adverse health effects
of such a tail, unless perhaps the child was born in the Dark Ages. In that
case, the child and the mother, now considered witches, would’ve been killed
instantly, which we usually file under adverse health effects.
Tonsils/adenoids
The tonsils are another useless part
of the body that can cause a bit of grief. Open your mouth wide and you’ll see
a tonsil on each side of your throat, unless you’ve had them removed, in which
case you’re much less likely to see them. Tonsils lurk about the back of your
throat while adenoids hang out in the back of your nose. Tonsils and adenoids
(T&A) are lymphoid tissues that are prone, in kids, to becoming infected
and inflamed and as such were indiscriminate targets of scalpels. Tonsillectomies
would cause kids to miss school and eat way too much ice cream, making them
sick yet again. Any child with a decent criminal bent could stretch this
surgery-induced holiday to two weeks, particularly if you suggested that your
coccyx was also sore. I am proud to say that I missed 136 days in Grade 3, just
shy of the record set by Capone. But are they troublesome, evolutionary
vestiges or ardent defenders of the body? Both tissues function in antibody
production and cell-mediated immunity and might well be important as a lymphoid
defense mechanism organ in the upper respiratory tract.
Doctors are now a little more
reluctant to remove the tonsils or the adenoids no matter how badly Junior
snores, snorts or schnozzles. When studies indicated that there was no decrease
in the number of colds, sore throats, and other respiratory infections between
children who had them removed, and those who did not, Benny & Jerry stocks
completely tanked.
