Faeces

Faeces (American English: feces; also poop or poo) are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Faeces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin and dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut. Faeces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation. Quotes Cow dung and horse dung, as muck goes, are relatively agreeable. You can even become nostalgic about them. They smell of fermented grain, and on the far side of their smell there is hay and grass. Chicken shit is disagreeable and rasps the throat because of the quantity of ammonia. When you are cleaning out the hen house, you’re glad to go to the door and take a deep breath of fresh air. Pig and human excrement, however, smell the worst, because men and pigs are carnivorous and their appetites are indiscriminate. The smell includes the sickeningly sweet one of decay. And on the far side of it there is death. John Berger, "Muck and Its Entanglements" in Harper's Magazine (May 1989), p. 60. Republished as "A Load of Shit" in Keeping a Rendezvous (New York, 1991), p. 38 External links Feces Category:Biology