How much guts does it take to survive? Nature supplies man with an average 25 feet, four-fifths of it in the small intestine (comprising the duodenum, ileum and jejunum).
For reasons that medical researchers have not yet fathomed, inflammation of the ileum, the lower third of the small bowel, is far less common.
In the other, the diseased ileum is cut off, and its open end is stitched shut; it is left dangling.