• appendicitis
• fibre
• epidemiology

In the last three months of 1946 and the first quarter of 1947, the late Anand Pardhy and I were the graded surgeon and graded physician in a CCS (Casualty Clearing Station) which was acting as a static hospital in the small town of Prome, on the Irrawaddy, in South Burma. In the same area was a camp of 1077 Japanese soldiers awaiting repatriation. They had their own medical officers and sick bay but cases requiring surgery and the more severely ill medical cases were admitted to the CCS. During this period, we admitted from the Japanese camp 10 cases of acute appendicitis, or one case every 2–3 weeks. At the beginning I assisted Pardhy but became so familiar with the technique that I was allowed to do the operation, with Anand Pardhy assisting.

We were intrigued by the high incidence of appendicitis in the Japanese soldiers and thought …