Beaumont published the first results of his experiments on St. Martin in the Philadelphia Medical Recorder for January, 1825, and full details in his Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion (1833). Beaumont ends his treatise with a list of fifty-one inferences based on his 238 separate experiments. Although working away from the centers of medicine, Beaumont used findings from Spallanzini, Carminiti, Viridet, Vauquelin, Tiedemann and Gmelin, Leuret and Lassaigne, Montegre, and Prout. Even with their information, he still obeyed the scientific method, basing all his inferences on direct experimentation.
Beaumont concluded:
Beaumont's important experiments quickly reached an international audience. In the United States, Dunglison's 1844 second edition of Human Health included a 3-page appendix of Beaumont's "...time required for the stomachal digestion of different alimentary substances, "** and Cutter's popular Anatomy and Physiology Designed for Academies and Families (1848) included Beaumont's results for the mean times for digesting foods. In France, Claude Bernard cited Beaumont's work in his 1865 Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. Bernard may have learned about it from a German translation published in 1834, or from Beaumont's own 1825 paper from the Philadelphia Medical Recorder that was abstracted both in a German magazine (1826) and a French medical journal (Archives generales de Medecine, 1828, Paris). Interestingly, Bernard created fistulas in animals to observe how the pancreas and small intestines functioned in digestion. A letter from Dr. W. G. Edwards, an Illinois physician who studied in Paris, provides further evidence of Bernard's keen interest in Beaumont's experiments. Edwards wrote Beaumont that Bernard wished to know more details about St. Martin's health, occupation, and other personal information. Beaumont replied, in part,
Beaumont's accomplishment is even more remarkable because the United
States, unlike England, France, and Germany, provided no research facilities
for experimental medicine. Little was known about the physiology of
digestion. Beaumont, a "backwoods physiologist," Footnotes *Jean Baptise van Helmont ( 1577-1644), a Flemish doctor, is credited with being first to prescribe an alkaline cure for indigestion (Breasted, 1931). Observing the innards of birds, he reasoned that acid in the digestive tract could not alone decompose meats, and that other substances ("ferments") must break down food. Today we refer to the ferments as digestive enzymes. ** Beaumont enlisted the aid of two prominent American scientists, Robley Dunglison, Professor of Physiology, Medical Department, University of Virginia (physician to Thomas Jefferson), and Benjamin Silliman, professor of Chemistry, Yale University, in analyzing samples of gastric juice. (Myer, 1939). Dunglison suggested further experiments on St. Martin, which Beaumont carried out, but Silliman's analysis provided little new information to Beaumont. With an introduction by Silliman, Beaumont corresponded with Swedish chemist Jacob Berzelius, and sent him a pint of pure gastric juice (sealed and capped with strong leather and twine, and cased in tin, with the lid soldered on, that no one may open it) for analysis. The Myer text contains the correspondence among Beaumont, Dunglison, Silliman, Berzelius, and others, including extensive correspondence with Alexis St. Martin, his family, and officials of the United States Government. Myer also includes photos of the original documents, including several of St. Martin and Beaumont, as well as illustrations of Beaumont, his family, his residences, and St. Martin's wound. References Beaumont, W. (1959). Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. Breasted, J. H. (1931). The rise of man, Science, 639. Cathcart, E. P. (1953). The early development of the science of nutrition. In G. H. Bourne and G. W. Kidder (Eds). Biochemistry and Physiology of Nutrition, Vol. 1. New York: Academic Press, Inc. Cutter, C. (1848). Anatomy and Physiology Designed for Academies and Families. New York: Bengamin B. Mussey and Co. Dunglison, R. (1844). Human Health, or The Influence of Atmosphere and Locality; Change of Air and Climate; Seasons; Food; Clothing; Bathing and Mineral Springs; Exercise; Sleep; Corporeal and Intellectual Pursuits, on Healthy Man; Constituting Elements of Hygiene. A New Edition. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. Myer, J. S. (1939). Life and Letters of Dr. William Beaumont. St. Louis: The C.V. Mosby Company. Additional Resources Kidder, G. W. (1953). Biochemistry and Physiology of Nutrition, Vol. 1. New York: Academic Press, Inc. http://www.cl.utoledo.edu/canaday/quackery/scimed2.gif Osler, W. (1902). William Beaumont: A pioneer American physiologist. Journal of the American Medical Association, Nov 15, 1902.
Copyright
©1998 |
One
of the most fortuitous experiments in medicine began on June 6,
1822 at Fort Mackinac on the upper Michigan peninsula. Beaumont
tended the accidental shotgun wound that perforated the abdominal
wall and stomach of Alexis St. Martin, a 19 year-old voyageur for
the American Fur Company. Part of the wound formed a small natural
"valve" that led directly into the stomach. Beaumont turned
St. Martin on his left side, depressing the valve, and then inserted
a tube the size of a large quill five or six inches into the stomach.
He performed two kinds of experiments on the digestive processes
from 1825 to 1833. First, he observed the fluids discharged by the
stomach when different foods were eaten (in vivo). Second, he extracted
samples of the stomach's content and put them into glass tubes to
determine the time required for "external" digestion (in
vitro). For centuries, the stomach was thought to produce heat that
somehow cooked foods. Alternatively, the stomach was imaged as a
mill, a fermenting vat, or a stew pan.* Through his experiments,
Beaumont revolutionized concepts about digestion.