Most Instructive Accident in History
By David Paulson
The Man with a Door in His Stomach—The Help It Bestowed on Studies in Dietetics Superintendent Hinsdale, Illinois, Sanitarium The mysterious process of digestion has always been a curious subject, one that philosophers and investigators have delved into in all ages. But it is a field in which nature has been very reluctant to yield up her secrets. During the last few years, there has been a perfect deluge of discoveries along digestive lines. The X-ray has been the most important help in this direction. Of course every schoolboy knows that the first important discoveries in digestion were made by Dr. Beaumont on Alexis St. Martin. But the real, intimate story of this wonderful man's life has recently come to light by the finding of an old chest in St. Louis containing copies of all his important letters, memoranda of many interesting experiences, and also personal accounts of experiments. A Great Work in a Far-Off Place
Dr. Beaumont was an army surgeon on the little island of Mackinac, up in northern Michigan, in 1820. Now project yourself back ninety years, and try to imagine, if you can, how wild and desolate that part of the country was. The fur traders once a year flocked in with their furs, and many of them became gloriously drunk. Outside of these times, Dr. Beaumont scarcely saw a white face except the few soldiers stationed there, for whom he was surgeon. One evening, while the fur traders were having a carousal, a gun accidentally went off a few feet from a young man by the name of Alexis St. Martin. The discharge of chicken shot made a big opening in his left side, directly into his stomach. Although the man was thought to be dying, Dr. Beaumont was called in, and his physician's instinct prompted him to try to save the man's life. He stopped the hemorrhage as promptly as possible, pulled out of the wound a portion of the red flannel shirt, the gun-wad, and dug out as many of the shot as he could; and to his amazement the man lived. But it was an awful wound. It suppurated and sloughed off, and a portion of the ribs had to be amputated, and then abscess after abscess formed. After some months, the local government refused to maintain him there any longer as a charity patient, and proposed to carry him back to his home in the forests north of Montreal. The man's pitiable condition touched Dr. Beaumont's heart. He knew the poor fellow would die if simply left to himself. And so, although he was only receiving forty dollars a month and his rations, he took that man into his own home, and cared for him at his own expense—not for the purpose of making experiments on him, for that thought had never entered his head. He was simply trying to save the man's life and coax his wound to heal. In two years' time the wound healed; but it left an artificial opening into the stomach, which was bandaged over with a wad of lint in order to keep the gastric juice from running out when the patient ate his meals. One day the doctor tied a piece of raw beef instead of lint over the opening, and found, in a few hours, that the gastric juice had digested the beef entirely away—raising the interesting question, which has never been satisfactorily answered, why the stomach does not digest itself. By and by Alexis was well enough that he could begin to do some chores about the place. Then it occurred to Dr. Beaumont that here was a most admirable opportunity to make some experiments. Remember that there was not another physician within a hundred miles for him to consult with. All the laboratory apparatus he had was a thermometer, a few test-tubes, a few vials, and a sand-bath; yet with these simple facilities, he worked out some great truths, which we have scarcely got beyond to-day with all our extensive facilities for research. His experience should be an inspiration to all young persons who feel they have no opportunities to accomplish anything for God and humanity. Dr. Beaumont had only fairly begun to make his interesting experiments when Alexis St. Martin ran away, penetrated the trackless forests, finally got back to his old home in the interior, went to drinking again, ultimately married, and Dr. Beaumont lost all track of him for nearly two years. Finally some of the officers of the Hudson Bay Fur Company came in touch with him and succeeded in persuading him to return to Dr. Beaumont. Interesting and Practical Observations
Of the many valuable and remarkable tests that the doctor made, I have selected a few that are of the most importance to the reader. For instance, he observed that when St. Martin had a fever, he did not secrete any gastric juice. This gives us a good idea why people do not have any appetite when they have an acute fever. Hence it is a mistake to cram food into patients when they do not want it. When your child has an acute cold, with a rise of temperature, and does not want to eat, do not insist upon its doing so. You will probably be doing it more harm than good. Give it plenty of water to drink instead. Clear out its bowels thoroughly, and it will recover much quicker than if you gave it three square meals a day. Alexis St. Martin had a wicked hankering for liquor, and several times succeeded in securing some. Then his stomach would become red and inflamed. Dr. Beaumont also discovered something that Dr. Pawlow, the great Russian investigator, has since confirmed,—that milk is much less stimulating than meat to the stomach. That is, it calls out less gastric juice. That is why patients suffering of hyperacidity or even gastric ulcer can nearly always endure milk or buttermilk, or even fresh cottage cheese, while flesh food makes them worse in the end, although it produces a feeling of comparative comfort just for the time. That is because the flesh food mops up the excessive acid. But as it is a powerful gastric stimulant, in the end it calls out more acid, and so the last state of that patient is much worse than the first. Seventeen or eighteen years ago, when I was giving some lectures at Atlanta, Georgia, a college professor said to me, “Doctor, why is it that when I eat meat, it sets on my stomach like a poultice?” At the time, it nonplused me; but all these recent discoveries make that an easy question to answer now. The worst cases of gastric ulcer I have ever seen are excessive meat-eaters. The first thing we do is to put them upon a diet that calls out the very least gastric juice, such as simple cereal gruels or milk, combined with other appropriate treatment. Then such cases can generally be cured in a short time. Dr. Beaumont found out another interesting thing, and that is that violent passions, such as anger, great excitement, strong emotions, have a profound effect on the gastric juice of the stomach. Pawlow ascertained the same thing in his experiments on dogs. People who are very angry or laboring under some great excitement ought first of all to ask the Lord to forgive them, and learn to live on a different plane. But those who do not have sense enough to do this should remember that it is a physiological crime to eat while in such a state of mind. While Dr. Beaumont was conducting these experiments, the government transferred him to Prairie du Chien, located on the upper Mississippi. Shortly after this, Alexis St. Martin insisted on going back and visiting his wife. To make the trip, he rode down the Mississippi in an open canoe to St. Louis, up the Ohio River to Ohio, traveled across the state, rowed along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario until he reached the St. Lawrence River, then down to Montreal, and walked seventy-five miles into the interior to his native haunt. Later he refused to come back unless his wife returned with him, and Dr. Beaumont had to come to his terms. Then there was drawn up the most unique contract that was ever made in human history. It was to the783effect that Alexis St. Martin was to submit to all manner of experiments on his stomach for a year, for which he was to be paid the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars. The Science of Right Eating
During this year, Dr. Beaumont discovered that taste has a marvelous influence on digestion. When Alexis ate food that he liked, then he poured out more gastric juice than when he ate food that he did not relish. This great truth was almost forgotten until Pawlow again brought it to light in his famous experiments in Russia some years ago. It is important that we should taste the food before we swallow it. Some people do not. They swallow it so hastily they hardly taste it at all. Such people are punished by being compelled to taste their food afterwards. It is not physiological to eat what we do not relish. That emphasizes the importance of preparing food in an appetizing and palatable manner. On the other hand, I feel sorry for people who do not like all food that is really good. Such folks need to have their taste converted, so they will love that which is good, and hate that which is evil. Another thing that Dr. Beaumont observed was the fact that thorough mastication of food facilitates its digestion—that food well masticated does not remain in the stomach so long. You see this early investigator anticipated Fletcher by at least eighty years. In fact, we are not learning so much new these days as we sometimes think we are; we are only entering into the labors of other men who have toiled before us. How to Avoid Auto-Intoxication
He also discovered that bulk in the food facilitates its proper digestion. That has not always been recognized as it should. We ought to add to our food lettuce, spinach, asparagus, or cooked string-beans, or even raw bran with a little cream or fruit juice over it, because of the stimulant such substances give the wall of the intestine. So doing, we encourage the rapid transit of the food material through the alimentary canal. Nature never intended that the food remnants and refuse should remain in the alimentary canal more than twenty-four hours. During that length of time, the germs can not produce very dangerous poisons. It is in the next twenty-four hours, and in some cases the next twenty-four hours after that, that auto-intoxication is promoted. Remember that by adding liberal bulk to the food, the schedule time is materially shortened, and this is a most important thing for the general health. Beaumont also observed that condiments are irritating to the stomach, causing it to pour out mucus, laying the foundation for gastric catarrh. People who in season and out of season add condiments to their food, will pay dearly for it later on. We should never eat anything that tastes hot when it is really cold. It is amazing that after ninety years, this striking truth which Beaumont first called attention to has not taken hold of the public more thoroughly than it has. Later Dr. Beaumont was transferred to St. Louis. Meanwhile Alexis St. Martin and his wife were determined to go back and visit their old friends in Canada, which they did after signing a cast-iron agreement with Dr. Beaumont to return at a set time for further experiments. But he failed to keep his word, and for ten years Dr. Beaumont tried to get in touch with him. Finally some of the Hudson Bay people again found him, and sent the doctor word that they had got on the track of his “patent digester.” But Alexis was unreasonable in his demands, although he was so poor that he did not have proper clothing for his wife and children. Finally, in the early fifties, Dr. Beaumont himself died, thus prematurely closing these amazing discoveries. And the astonishing thing was that this man Alexis St. Martin lived until 1880, when he was eighty-three years old, all the while having this hole in his stomach, and from time to time drinking excessively. He was evidently hard to kill. But the poor fellow had not lived in vain. His was certainly the most instructive accident that had ever happened in human history. In a few short years, most of these facts, and many others that had been discovered in like manner, began to filter down into our physiologies. No one added anything to them of essential value until Dr. Pawlow made his famous experiments on dogs in St. Petersburg, Russia. Pawlow discovered that there is a different kind of gastric juice made for each different kind of food. That shows why the long banquet dinners are all wrong. If you have to attend this kind of dinner, eat only a few things, and thus come away safe and sound. In arranging your own tables, have the variety from meal to meal, but eat only a few things at each meal, and let your moderation in dietetics be known to all men. Probably more people die from dietetic excesses than die from indulging in alcoholic liquors. Pawlow observed that when the dogs saw food which they relished, they shortly began to pour out gastric juice to digest this food. That emphasizes the importance of clean linen and attractive table service. In some homes, no special care is taken in these directions except when visitors come. It is almost as important to have food attractive, as to have it good. Furthermore, Pawlow observed the great influence the state of mind has over digestion. One day he put a cat into the dog's kennel. You know there is no love lost between cats and dogs. And while the dog ate the food he ordinarily relished, he did not pour out any satisfactory juice, because he did not like the company he had at meal-time. When one eats in an ugly, dissatisfied, contemptible, hateful state of mind, he is sinning toward God, and is wronging himself. I have been in some homes where the father of the family thanked God for the food—which is the proper thing to do, for in the last analysis it is God's power that creates all food. Without His creative work, we should speedily starve to death. But a few minutes afterward, the same man would begin to complain to his wife about the food. I never could see sense in that. Either he was not sincere in thanking the Lord, or he meant nothing in complaining to his wife. The great ideal is to continue feeling thankful during all the meal. Ten years ago, Dr. Cannon began using the X-ray on cats, to unfold some of the mysterious processes of digestion; and his work brought most interesting results, some of which upset old notions. For instance, he found out that starchy food, like grains, and potatoes and other vegetables, leaves the stomach much more quickly than protein food, like meat, eggs, beans, and nuts. He observed that under ordinary circumstances, water remains in the stomach a few minutes only. In fact, sometimes it leaves the stomach almost as rapidly as it is drunk. However, it is not wisdom to drink a great deal of water at meal-time—certainly not to wash the food down. The small intestine, which is more than twenty feet in length, is where the essential work of digestion is done. Cannon found out that the food mass is not simply propelled along by peristaltic action. Every little while, it stops entirely, and the intestines simply knead it thoroughly by a process which he called segmentation. Some Important Conclusions
However, he noted the fact, which others also have verified, that the food mass, under normal conditions, only requires a few hours to pass through the small intestines. It is in the four to six feet of large intestine that there is the long delay, and here is where the absorption of toxins takes place if one indulges in dietetic errors and permits stagnation to take place. Cannon observed that when his cat became ugly and began to scratch and snarl, all these digestive processes stopped completely; but when he petted the cat, and called it “nice kitty,” as soon as it began to purr the whole performance began again. The fact of the case is that when God created man, He made him to be happy and contented. None of the physiological processes of the body take place satisfactorily in any other state of mind. When sin entered the world, it disarranged all this. Then it was that Christ came to make peace for those who had no peace; to say to the most care-worn and distracted mortal that walks this earth, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Matt. 11:28. And the more extended my medical experience becomes, the more I am convinced of the utter folly of merely treating the physical side of humanity while neglecting the larger half—the mental and spiritual needs of the sick and suffering.