MICROBES IN THE HUMAN BODY 45 



Examples of human beings who have lived after the partial 

 or total removal of the large intestine or after the suppression 

 of its function are far from being rare. A patient of Korte 

 survived eight operations on his intestine ; another of Wiesinger 

 remained in a satisfactory condition after losing both his trans- 

 verse and descending colon. Another of Ciechomski lived for 

 thirty years with a fistula which had put the large intestine out 

 of use ; he married and had children. Tavel's patient (studied 

 by MacFadyean, Nencki, and Sieber), aged sixty-two, had to 

 digest her food for six months without the large intestine, yet 

 she remained well. A patient of Mauclaire has been living 

 for years in fair health with her large intestine out of use. 

 The histories of these patients are to be found in the most 

 respectable surgical journals. 



An English surgeon, Lane, recently published an account of 

 thirty-nine removals of the large intestine, partial or complete ; 

 he lost nine out of the number, i.e., 23 per cent. Many of the 

 survivors, formerly subject to enteritis and severe neurasthenia, 

 had never been able to enjoy life till it had become thus 

 " simple." The mortality is still too great for this operation 

 to be anything but an exceptional procedure. But surgical 

 technique is progressing every day. What surgeon would 



It is probable that the large intestine acted as a reservoir for the waste 

 products of digestion. The mammals having to run fast to escape from 

 their enemies or to capture their prey, were inconvenienced by the 

 necessity of stopping to empty their bowels. A large intestine under 

 these conditions would be of the greatest use. Thus we see that those 

 mammals which run fastest, such as the horse and the hare, possess the 

 most highly-developed large intestine and caecum. It is remarkable that, 

 among birds, the runners such as the ostriches and cassowaries have 

 similarly acquired a large intestine and possess cseca more developed than 

 all the other feathered creatures. It is thus the demand made by the 

 struggle for life which has led to the formation of the large intestine 

 among the vertebrates. The high development of this organ as a 

 reservoir for the solid excreta has produced in its turn the development of a 



very rich bacterial flora Man having no necessity for the large 



intestine and its flora either for the digestion of cellulose or for prolonged 

 retention of the residues of digestion derives no advantage whatever from its 

 possession. On the contrary he suffers very numerous inconveniences. 

 It is easy to conceive how an organ thus become useless con- 

 tributes to the shortening of life." Metchnikoff, Wilde Lecture, Manchester 

 Memoirs, 1901. 



