The colon
The large intestine is about 1.5 m long and frames the small intestine on three sides. It starts at the cecum in the lower right, climbs as the ascending colon, crosses under the stomach as the transverse colon and runs down the left side as the descending colon. An S-shaped loop, the sigmoid colon, then leads into the rectum.
The parts of the large intestine from the cecum to the anal canal, OpenStax Anatomy and PhysiologyWikimedia Commons, OpenStax College, CC BY 3.0 (2420 Large Intestine.jpg)
About 1.5 litres of watery chyme cross from the ileum each day. The colon takes back most of the water and salt, so that less than a tenth of a litre leaves in the faeces. Its contents move slowly, and a few times a day, often after breakfast, a strong mass movement pushes them a long way at once.
Sources
- Susan Standring (ed.), Gray's Anatomy, 42nd ed. (2020), chapter on the large intestine.
- Arthur Guyton and John Hall, Textbook of Medical Physiology, 13th ed. (2016), ch. 64 and 66.
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