You and your lab partners in a human anatomy course have just removed the intestines from an adult cadaver, and cut away connective tissues as necessary to uncoil the intestines into a straight line that could be measured. Your professor told you that the intestinal tract of an adult of this size and gender is typically about 13 ft. Your measurement is 22 ft. One of the lab partners insists that
everything is smaller in preserved cadavers due to dehydration. Address this suggestion, and propose some other explanations for the difference.
What will be an ideal response?
There is no doubt of some individual variation, so the measurement is expected to be at least a little different. Most of the difference is due to loss of living muscle tone, which normally keeps the tract contracted. While it is true that preserved tissues may shrink from dehydration, this is more than compensated by the loss of muscle tone.
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