The Medical Experiments of Dr. Beaumont: A Mini-Essay

     During a trapping expedition in the spring of 1822, a near-fatal accident gave an army doctor the medical profession’s first look at the human digestive system. During a night of drunken revelry, nineteen-year-old Alexis St. Martin accidentally shot himself in the stomach and Dr. William Beaumont quickly rushed to his aid. Pushing the vital organs back into the wound and picking out bits of shattered ribs, Beaumont treated the injury and St. Martin made a miraculous recovery.[1] During the healing process, the patient’s stomach attached to the inner lining of his chest wall and created a small aperture which allowed the doctor direct access to the organ. Over the months that followed, Beaumont took advantage of the opportunity and utilized St. Martin as a living experiment. The doctor would insert food, attached to a silk thread, into the aperture and retrieve it at planned intervals to study the digestive process.[2] While Beaumont’s finding revolutionized the medical field’s understanding of the human body, the studies transformed St. Martin into a medical curiosity and, after a heated argument, doctor and patient parted ways.[3] The incident catapulted Beaumont to fame and he published the results of his 238 studies in a massive text titled Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion. St. Martin, though, was not so lucky and financial troubles brought him back to the doctor in 1831 to resume experimentations in exchange for payment.[4] As before, the relationship was quickly strained and, in 1834, St. Martin fled to Canada, where he hid from the medical community for the remainder of his life.[5] 

Works Referenced

White, John. American Vignettes: A Collection of Footnotes to History. Convent Station, NJ: Travel Vision, 1976.
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[1] White, 24.
[2] White, 25.
[3] White, 25-26.
[4] White, 26.
[5] White, 26.