When surgeons at Manhattan's Memorial Hospital removed a cancer from the Long Island housewife's abdomen, they found that the growth had spread to her digestive tract. As a result, they also had to remove about 16 ft. of her intestines. The surgeons were confident that all the cancer was out. Now the question was: How could the patient be nourished?
Almost all nutrients enter the system by absorption through the walls of the small intestine, which had been removed and replaced by an emergency short circuit from the patient's duodenum to the remainder of her colon (see diagram). The only recourse was...
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