Previously, the sack-like rabbit appendix was thought to serve primarily as a reservoir for the bacteria involved in hindgut fermentation, a explanation that failed to account for the absence of an appendix in other animals with Line similar digestive systems or for its presence in humans. Microscopic research (5) revealed that the appendix contains a significant amount of lymphoid tissue, similar aggregates of which tissue occur in other areas of the gastrointestinal tract. These are involved, possibly, in the body’s ability to recognize foreign antigens in ingested material, but the evidence is inconclusive, to the extent that scientists have long discounted the human appendix as a "vestigial" organ.(10) However, a growing body of evidence suggests that the appendix, far from being a "vestigial organ", hag a significant function as a part of the body’ s immune system. The appendix achieves its greatest development shortly after birth, when immune response is first developing, then regresses with age, when the immune response mediated by the appendix may relate to such(15) inflammatory conditions as ulcerative colitis, which in adults necessitates the organ’ s surgical removal.
The passage provides information in support of which of the following assertions（）