310 DIGESTION. 



named receptacles. Beaumont* instituted a very extensive series 

 of experiments, regarding the digestibility of different kinds of 

 food, on a man (Alexis St. Martin), in whom there was a very 

 considerable persistent opening from without into the stomach, in 

 consequence of a gun-shot wound. Although Beaumont's inves- 

 tigations have led to many brilliant results in relation to gastric 

 digestion generally, and have much facilitated the path for further 

 inquiries, they do not yield many certain results regarding the 

 question we are now considering. In the first place, all these 

 experiments have reference solely to the time during which the 

 food remains in the stomach, although we know that vegetable 

 matters undergo their principal changes in the small intestine, and 

 that a great part even of animal food leaves the stomach in an 

 undigested state, and is only thoroughly digested by the intestinal 

 mucus. These experiments would, however, have been of higher 

 scientific interest, if only the time during which the food remained 

 undigested could have been accurately determined ; Beaumont 

 has, however, generally (and Gosse always) regarded the gastric 

 digestion as ended when the food in the stomach had been con- 

 verted into an uniform pulp (chyme}. But even this very uncer- 

 tain determination would have its own peculiar value, if the 

 experiments both of Gosse and Beaumont were not wanting in 

 two essential points. They used very complicated, variously pre- 

 pared, and for the most part half vegetable and half animal food, 

 in their experiments (thus, for instance, Beaumont generally gave 

 bread and vegetables with meat) ; and it is at once obvious that 

 such a method is totally unfit for determining the digestibility of 

 individual articles of diet; since Beaumont neither employed 

 chemical means nor the microscope for the minute investigation 

 of the matters that were presumed to be digested, he was naturally 

 unable to decide which constituents of the food were dissolved, 

 which were partially digested, and which were altogether un- 

 affected. Independently of certain other circumstances which 

 should be taken into consideration, it is obvious that only a 

 moderately satisfactory conclusion could have been drawn from 

 Beaumont's experiments if he had employed the simpler articles of 

 food, as albuminates, flesh, meal, bread, &c. His conclusions, even 

 in that case, would less have had reference to the digestibility of 

 individual substances, than to the time in which they are retained 

 in the stomach. The retention of the food in the stomach is, how- 



* Experiments and observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of 

 Digestion. Boston, 1834. 



