The intestine is the portion of the alimentary canal extending from the stomach to the anus and, in humans and other mammals, consists of two segments, the small intestine and the large intestine. In humans, the small intestine is further subivided into the duodenum, jejunum and ileum while the large intestine is subdivided into the cecum, colon and rectum.
The intestine is the part of the body responsible for extracting nutrition from food. While the stomach's role mainly consists in "breaking" food molecules into nutrients, the intestine allows these nutrients to enter the blood via its dedicated membrane.
The small intestine has a particular folded texture in order to increase the irrigated exchange area where the nutrients can actually go through the membrane to the blood. It is an average 7 meters long.
The large intestine hosts several kinds of bacteria that deal with molecules the human body is not able to destroy himself. This is an example of symbiosis. These bacteria also account for the production of methane inside our intestine (known as flatulence when it is exhalated).
The small intestine is a convoluted tube, extending from the pylorus to the colic valve, where it ends in the large intestine.
It is the strongest layer of the intestine.
Treves states that, in one hundred cases, the average length of the small intestine in the adult male was 22 feet 6 inches, and in the adult female 23 feet 4 inches: but that it varies very much, the extremes in the male being 31 feet 10 inches, and 15 feet 6 inches.
Each lip of the valve is formed by a reduplication of the mucous membrane and of the circular muscular fibers of the intestine, the longitudinal fibers and peritoneum being continued uninterruptedly from the small to the large intestine.
The glands of the great intestine are minute tubular prolongations of the mucous membrane arranged perpendicularly, side by side, over its entire surface; they are longer, more numerous, and placed in much closer apposition than those of the small intestine; and they open by minute rounded orifices upon the surface, giving it a cribriform appearance.
The intestine descends along this pouch into the cavity of the tunica vaginalis which constitutes the sac of the hernia, and the gut lies in contact with the testis.
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