New Delhi: As you can guess from the headline, the story of Alexis St Martin and his contribution to understanding the digestive system of human beings is very interesting. Alexis was a Canadian who was accidentally shot and his injury led him to become a part of experiments on digestion done by William Beaumont, an American physician of the Army between 1822 and 1833. How? Let us take a look at this interesting tale.
How did Martin end up being a subject of the experiment?
On June 6, 1822, Alexis was accidentally shot which a US Army surgeon named William Beaumont treated. He was in his 20s and healthy, but the severity of the wound was such that he could not recover fully and ended up with a fistula aperture into his stomach. During the period of treatment, all food Alexis ate re-emerged from his new gastric fistula. After treatment for more than two weeks, the food started to remain in his stomach and his bowels returned to natural functions.
After the wound healed, there remained a permanent gastric fistula. Science was yet to properly understand digestion and Beaumont realised the opportunity he had to understand the digestive process as he could see it by dangling food attached on a string into his stomach. He experimented on Alexis till 1833 and performed around 200 experiments in that period.
Why did Alexis St Martin allow himself to be the subject?
Well, he did not do it out of gratitude towards Beaumont. Rather, he did it because the American doctor had the uneducated man sign a contract to become a servant. Infact, St-Martin worked like a common servant during his time as the subject, including chopping wood. and as per Beaumont, he suffered almost no discomfort. Not the chores, but some of the experiments proved to be painful to St-Martin. The experiments shed new light on the digestive system and enabled a greater understanding of the stomach, gastric juices and the processes of digestion.
On June 6, 1822, Alexis was accidentally shot and his wound healed to a fistula aperture into his stomach. The experiments shed new light on the digestive system. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
