Human intestines

well, for one the liver will still be attached, and the spleen, and there's other attachments that you'll have to 'hand wave' away. And is the rectum getting torn in half or ??

A basic anatomy site will show you the bits from mouth to anus...

efreysson said:

Okay, this one isn't pretty . . .

I'm planning to have a character get magically turned into a horrible monster thing; Specifically, his head tears loose from the shoulders, floating around in the air, using the still-attached guts to flail out at enemies/prey.

Can someone run me through the proper "chain" in which a severed head would be attached to the small intestines, and what other parts might "pop out" with them?
I guess we can assume that the magic would make the squishy parts tougher than they are in reality.

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If the head is severed, it cuts the esophagus and there is no chain.

If it can magically detach just the spine and muscles

head >esophagus > Stomach >small intestine >large intestine ... that's attached to the anus. Lots of blood vessels have to pop.

Liver is only attached by the bile ducts that feed into the small intestine. Pancreas is only attached by the pancreatic ducts. Neither is a very large or strong connection, so they are unlikely to come with. Spleen is not attached to the digestive system - it just sits in the abdominal cavity.

I'm unclear. Does the magic mean that he doesn't need the blood supply or are the heart and lungs included in the evisceration? Is this a magical animated zombie excorporeal (retro corporeal? paracorporeal? not sure what the right nomenclature should be) creature? Does the magic also deal with the lack of voluntary muscles for the digestive system? All it normally has is peristalsis which at best could poop at someone if the distal end of the GI tract happened to be pointed the right way. Perhaps it is now acting like a magical poop filled slimey boa constrictor?

Tsu Dho Nimh said:

head >esophagus > Stomach >small intestine >large intestine ... that's attached to the anus. Lots of blood vessels have to pop.

Liver is only attached by the bile ducts that feed into the small intestine. Pancreas is only attached by the pancreatic ducts. Neither is a very large or strong connection, so they are unlikely to come with. Spleen is not attached to the digestive system - it just sits in the abdominal cavity.

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You are forgetting the Portal Venous System

If the spleen just sits in the abdominal cavity, you're going to find yourself in the ER right fast when those short vessels catch on something and occlude.

The liver, duodenum, stomach and many other organs have a lot of connective tissue that isn't hard to rip ONCE you get that initial tear, but there sure as hell is a lot of it. And good luck getting the root of the mesentary out clean (except with a knife or magically).

And as George pointed out, vessels aren't just floating around either, but connecting organs as well.

Hey, if it's being done magically, then you can include or exclude whatever you want.

One thing to make note of is that the small and large intestines, when completely untangled and extended, are dozens of feet long. I think the small intestine is about 22 feet and the long is 5 or 6 feet. Something like that.

Is all this stuff going to be trailing after the severed head as it floats around or is it all going to be a tangled mess floating beneath it? I can totally see someone grabbing the loose end of the large intestine and trying it to a lamp post then running away.

I don't know, explosive diarrhea as a weapon? It could come in handy, especially against someone who's never had to change diapers..I guess that's sort of like "The Omen," except the other end.

Magically animate zombie flesh, yeah, no blood supply needed, no voluntary muscles needed. Depending on where on the neck the detachment starts you might see the larynx as a swollen mostly whitish cartilage thing roughly 3 inches or about 7.5 cm long just above the esophagus. It's actually part of the respiratory system but the connections there are so strong I wouldn't be surprised if the main bronchus broke off and the larynx went with the esophagus, (it usually does when we butcher pigs) However someone or something has to be controlling it. I put on my detect magic glasses and search for the wizard!

The problem I see is that the intestines are like the doughnut hole. They don't really exist. Think of a person with the top of the doughnut being the mouth and the bottom is the anus. There's one long tube, which twists and turns, but it's connected at either end. The intestines are really part of your skin, and not part of your insides at all.

Since you want the intestines to be attached to the head, you have to cut it somewhere. If you cut it at the anus, you get the lower bowel and its contents, but if you cut it between the large and small intestines, you have undigested but otherwise not horribly rotten food. Then you'd have esophagus, stomach, and upper intestine hanging off of the mouth.

You can choose to pull out the spine, lungs, and everything else attached to the head, or just ignore them. Personally, I'd think the spine would be a better weapon for this sort of thing, but there's no accounting for the taste of insane magic creatures.

I remember this monster from DnD games back in the 80s! It's a Penanggalan!

If you don't mind spending a buck, ( or two or three ) you might want to invest in a anatomical book called "Clementae". ( I'm not even sure I spelled that correctly. Its been a while! ) Its a guide chock full of PHOTOGRAPHS of the human anatomy. You wanna see a lung cut five different ways? They have it in there! ( I was thinking of a different body part but since I'm new here, I cleaned it up! ) Do NOT read this book before dinner though! Lots of food for gore there.

I found out about it when I was studying human anatomy for massage school. I could only take brief looks at it though and I thought that I had a pretty tough stomach!

D.C.