DIGESTIVE POWER OF GASTRIC FLUID. 277 



^of dogs, obtained by causing the animals to swallow small 

 pieces of sponge, which were subsequently withdrawn, 

 soaked with the fluid and proved nearly as much as the 

 latter experiments of the same kind of gastric fluid by 

 Blondlot, Bernard, and others. But these need not be 

 particularly referred to, while we have the more satisfac- 

 tory and instructive observations which Dr. Beaumont 

 made with the fluid obtained from the stomach of St, 

 Martin. After the man had fasted seventeen hours, 

 Dr. Beaumont took one ounce of gastric fluid, put into it a 

 solid piece of boiled recently salted beef weighing three 

 drachms, and placed the vessel which contained them in a 

 water bath heated to 100. " In forty minutes digestion 

 had distinctly commenced over the surface of the meat ; in 

 fifty minutes, the fluid had become quite opaque and 

 cloudy, the external texture began to separate and become 

 loose ; and in sixty minutes chyme began to form. At 

 I p.m." (two hours after the commencement of the experi- 

 ment) " the cellular texture seemed to be entirely 

 destroyed, leaving the muscular fibres loose and uncon- 

 nected, floating about in small fine shreds, very tender and 

 soft." In six hours, they were nearly all digested a few 

 fibres only remaining. After the lapse of ten hours, every 

 part of the meat was completely digested. The gastric 

 juice, which was at first transparent, was now about the 

 colour of whey, and deposited a fine sediment of the colour 

 of meat. A similar piece of beef was, at the time of the 

 commencement of this experiment, suspended in the 

 stomach by means of a thread : at the expiration of the 

 first hour it was changed in about the same degree as the 

 meat digested artificially; but at the end of the second 

 hour, it was completely digested and gone. 



It other experiments, Dr. Beaumont withdrew through 

 the opening of the stomach some of the food which had 

 been taken twenty minutes previously, and which was 

 completely mixed with the gastric juice. He continued 



