William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin.
Oil on canvas by Dean Cornwell.
The muzzle was not more than a yard away.
When Beaumont arrived at the scene, he found a crowd had gathered around the injured man.
The doctor elbowed his way through, and at once, began attending to the man.
William Beaumont was the only surgeon on the island and he did as best as he could.
Beaumont did not expect St. Martin to live.
But to everyones surprise, St. Martin pulled through and began a slow but remarkable recovery.
For some reason, the hole in the stomach refused to heal.
Everything that St. Martin ate passed out through the hole.
During this time, Beaumont sustained him by means of nutritious enemas.
Alexis St. Martins gastric fistula.
To retain food and drinks, he applied a compress using lint and more adhesive straps.
Between work, whenever he found time, St. Martin submitted himself to Beaumonts fingering.
He examined the action of bile on the digestive process and measured temperature and acidity.
St. Martin felt helpless and humiliated by Beaumonts intrusive experiments.
But each time, poverty brought him back to Beaumont.
Once Beaumont sent agents to track St. Martin down and bring him to America for another round of experiments.
All in all, Beaumont performed some 200 experiments on St. Martin over a period of 10 years.
William Beaumont
Beaumont drew no less than 51 conclusions about digestion based on his observations of Alexis St. Martin.
Beaumont’s research into gastric juices was cutting edge.
Alexis St. Martin died in 1880, outliving Beaumont by about 28 years.
Several researchers hoped to preserve his stomach in the Army Medical Museum, but his family refused.
Beaumonts ethics regarding his experiments with St. Martin have been questioned by many.
He had no concern about the ethics of his experiments, but no one else did either.
He was not an unkind man, but as a physician he was a man of his age.
