Abstract
THE capacity of the human body to withstand remarkable injury or loss of what may seem to be essential organs is continually astonishing those who have to deal with injuries sustained in war and peace or with the results of surgical operations. C. C. Holman (Lancet, 597, Nov. 4, 1944) has reported the instance of a woman who, having survived the removal of her uterus and of the breast for cancer ten and six years earlier respectively, had to sustain, at the age of fifty-six, the removal of twenty feet of her small intestine: a lateral anastomosis was performed between the jejunum and the transverse colon. The patient recovered and three months later had gained 2 lb. in weight. A year after the operation she weighed rather more than before her operation and was doing the parish work as a clergyman's wife.
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Length of Small Intestine. Nature 155, 327 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155327b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155327b0