"How much is that above that of any surrounding structures?"

The data were supplied.

"It is a church, you say?"

"Yes."

"Well," said the great man, "on the whole, I should advise you to put on
a lightning-rod. Providence is apt to be, at times, a trifle
absent-minded."

The chances are in favor of your recovery, but--put on a lightning-rod,
in the shape of the best and most competent doctor you know, and be
guided entirely by his opinion. An attack of appendicitis is like
shooting the Grand Lachine Rapids. Probably you will come through all
right; but there is always the possibility of landing at a moment's
notice on the rocks or in the whirlpools. With a good pilot your risk
doesn't exceed a fraction of one per cent. And fortunately this
condition has been not merely theoretically but practically reached
already; for the later series of case-groups of appendicitis treated in
this intelligent way by cooeperation between the physician and surgeon
from the start, with prompt interference in those cases which to the
practiced eye show signs of making trouble, has reduced the actual
recorded mortality of the disease to between two and five per cent. Even
of those cases which come to operation now, the death-rate has been
reduced as low as five per cent, in series of from 400 to 600 successive
operations. When we contrast this with the first results of operation,
when the cases as a rule were seen too late for the best time of
interference, and from twenty per cent to thirty per cent died; and with
the intermediate stage, when surgeons as a rule were inclined to advise
operation at the earliest possible moment that the disease could be
recognized, and from ten per cent to fifteen per cent died, we can see
how steady the improvement has been, and how encouraging the outlook is
for the future.

Cases which have weathered one attack of appendicitis are of course by
no means free from the risk of another. Indeed, at one time it was
believed that a recurrence was almost certain to occur. Later
investigations, based upon larger numbers of cases, now running up into
the thousands, give the reassuring result that though this danger is a
real one, it is not so great as it was at one time supposed, as the
average number in whom a second attack occurs appears to be about
twenty per cent. This, however, is a large enough risk to be worthy of
serious consideration; and in view of the fact that the mortality of
operations d