394 LIQUID PARTS OF ANIMALS. 



new light on the process of digestion. Alexis St Martin, who 

 was the subject of these experiments, was a Canadian of French 

 descent. He had been engaged in the service of the American 

 Fur Company, and was accidentally wounded by the discharge 

 of a musket on the 6th of June 1822. The charge, consisting 

 of powder and duck shot, was received on the left side, distant 

 not more than a yard from the muzzle of the gun. The contents 

 entered posteriorly, and in an oblique direction, forward and in- 

 ward, blowing off integuments and muscles of the size of a man's 

 hand, fracturing and carrying away the anterior half of the sixth 

 rib, fracturing the fifth, lacerating the lower portion of the left 

 lobe of the lungs and the diaphragm, and perforating the sto- 

 mach. He came under the surgical treatment of Dr Beaumont, 

 fevered, and for some time all the food taken into the stomach 

 made its way through the perforation. Gradually, however, this 

 was prevented by compresses applied to the opening into the sto- 

 mach. By degrees the injured parts sloughed off, and the pro- 

 truded portions of the stomach adhering to the pleura costalis and 

 the external wound, a free exit was afforded to the contents of 

 that organ, and effusion into the abdominal cavity was thereby 

 prevented. In about a year and a half after the accident, the 

 whole was healed, and the health and strength of St Martin 

 completely restored, but the perforation of the stomach still con- 

 tinued. It was situated at the left and upper side of the great 

 curvature. The external opening was about two inches below 

 the left nipple, on a line drawn from the nipple to the left ileum. 



At the point where the lacerated edges of the muscular coat 

 of the stomach and the intercostal muscles met and united with 

 the cutis vera, the cuticle of the external surface and the mucous 

 membrane of the stomach approached each other very nearly. 

 They did not unite like those of the lips, nose, &c. but left an in- 

 termediate marginal space of appreciable breadth, completely 

 surrounding the aperture. This space was about a line wide ; 

 and the cutis and nervous papillae were unprotected, and as sen- 

 sible and irritable as a blistered surface abraded of the cuticle. 



At first, when the stomach was empty, a portion of the mucous 

 coat was protruded by the orifice to the size of a hen's egg, but 

 there was no difficulty in reducing it by gentle pressure with the 

 finger or a sponge wet with cold water, neither of which produ- 

 ced the least pain. 



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