Do you know that many information we have about the digestive system was due to a bullet and a near fatal accident!?
Then again a hole in the stomach made it all possible!
The experimentation and ethics are questionable of course!
So close to 200 years ago June 6, 1822 to be precise; St-Martin was accidentally shot with a musket at close range at the fur trading post on Mackinac Island. The charge of the musket shot left a hole through his side that healed to form a fistula aperture into his stomach
The bizarre window into his digestive system created the circumstances for a strangely intimate relationship between Martin, a Canadian fur trapper, and the fort doctor, William Beaumont!
Beaumont was stationed at Fort Mackinac in the Michigan Territory and he treated Alexis St. Martin. Beaumont not only saved his life, but he allowed St. Martin to live with him as he recuperated. St. Martin’s convalescence lasted several years, affording Beaumont the opportunity to closely monitor the gradual recovery of his patient.
Alexis St. Martin was a resilient young dude since the injury was so severe and he was never expected to recover! Forget live for so long!
Curiously, St. Martin’s wound healed as a fistula, with a permanent opening in his abdomen through which the interior of his stomach was visible from the outside of his body. Beaumont soon discovered that he was able to view the process of digestion via the nearly inch-wide hole leading to St. Martin’s stomach. Seizing upon this rare opportunity — and with St. Martin’s intermittent cooperation for the following ten years — Beaumont conducted hundreds of experiments on the functions of the human stomach. The results of these exhaustive investigations were published in Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion in 1833.
There were over 250 different experiments in all, with most of them detailing how Beaumont placed various kinds of food directly into St. Martin’s stomach via the fistula.
Most often, the food was kept in place by attaching it to a string that Beaumont left dangling outside of the hole to St. Martin’s stomach. Beaumont could then watch the processes of digestion by looking directly into the stomach.
He would also remove the food at regularly timed intervals to take weight measurements, and then reinsert the food into the stomach again to continue his observations on digestion. As one might imagine, these experiments were often uncomfortable and painful for St. Martin.
But the poor bloke bore it all for food and accomodation and may be since someone took so much interest in him!
Of course the experiments and process gave us deep insights to the process of digestion and do not worry, life was not totally unfair to Alexis St. Martin!
Later on Alexis St. Martin got married and that too happily! Anecdotal evidence of course! Since he later on had six children and the best part!?
Well, he outlived his doctor by several years! So a hole in the stomach can still be managed! A mental hole in the heart or your soul? Well, only God can save you!
Also note that not all doctors like to see patient simply as objects to experiment upon! Some are really great and in fact legendary!
Like the 93 years old doctor Chilukuri Santhamma! Do read about her and get inspired while eating your dinner!
SHubh ratri!
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