eli5 How was a whole organ’s usefulness unknown for such a long time(appendix)?
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Calling the appendix a “whole organ” is a stretch. It’s a long, skinny out-pouching off the colon smaller than your little finger. For decades most people knew it mostly for the problem it caused (appendicitis) and also that you could remove it with little to no discernible effect.
By usefulness, are you referring to maintenance of gut flora diversity? Diversity is a difficult thing to study. Take a sample of poop and spread it on a Petri dish. How do you tell how many different types of bacteria are there? Most bacterial colonies look about the same and identifying the type is painstakingly laborious. I’m fairly certain it is now done using next generations sequencing of DNA now which is a relatively new method. Before this, it was expensive and tedious to get a measure of gut flora diversity.
Wholesale replacement of gut flora with Clostridium difficile causing diarrhea was known decades ago, but does having an appendix protect you from C. diff? I don’t know to be honest.
Subtle things can be difficult to appreciate. The things we know often depend on the tools we have at our disposal.
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