Alexis St. Martin: living science
experiment
Alexis St. Martin was a French-Canadian fur trader working at Fort
Mackinac in the 1820s when he was shot in the stomach. A gun
blast to the abdomen spelled death for almost every victim of the
time, but St. Martin, for some reason, didn't die. His injury
provided the fort's doctor, Dr. William Beaumont, with a rare
opportunity to study the human digestion process. Through Dr.
Beaumont's studies, St. Martin became a living science
experiment.
After Years of Failure, Finally a Break
In the 1820s, there was no possible way of knowing what
happened to a piece of food after someone swallowed it. Looking
at a corpse would do no good because the digestion process had
ceased for that person. Scientist and doctors could get a good view of the inside of the stomach,
but not while it was digesting food. Questions like these were probably asked, theorized about,
experimented about, hashed, and re-hashed over and over with little success or satisfaction.
 What happens between when food goes in and when it comes out?
 How does the stomach work?
 What role does it play in digestion?
 How is food digested?
 What gases/liquids/creatures break food down?
 Do different types of foods break down differently?
 How long does the digestion process take?
 How do we find out?
Enter this fabulous opportunity: a young man with a gaping stomach wound who is still alive and
digesting. The perfect occasion for Dr. Beaumont to conduct experiments on the stomach.
Dr. Beaumont's Experiments
These are just a sampling of the items Dr. Beaumont placed into or
took out of Alexis St. Martin's stomach to observe the results.
 Placed into stomach:
o Pieces of beef
o Vegetables
o Fish
o Raw foods
o Cooked foods
 Taken out of stomach:
o Gastric juices
o Pieces of stomach lining
Beaumont experimented with different types of foods to answer the
question "Do different types of foods digest differently?" and extracted
gastric juices to research how they affect food to break it down.
Beaumont and St. Martin published a book in 1833 about their work called, Experiments and
Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion. St. Martin is listed as a coauthor, but no one is really sure why since many historians doubt he had anything to do with the
actual writing of the book.
Beyond the Experiments
Alexis St. Martin moved back to Canada in 1825. He and Beaumont met up once more, in
Washington DC in 1832, to conduct the experiments published in the book. He lived there with his
wife and children until his death in 1880. He lived his life from the age of 28 on with a hole in his
side.
St. Martin's family was so angered by the number of doctors, scientists, and curio hunters who
showed up after his death wanting to examine his body that they allowed his body to rot before
burrying it in an unmarked grave to ensure that no one could perform any further experiments on
him.
Dr. William Beaumont left the Army Medical Service for good in 1839 and moved to St. Louis to
start a private medical practice. He lived there with his wife, Deborah, until his death in 1853.
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