BEAUMONT 29 



were made with a true spirit of inquiry and with no particular hypo- , 

 thesis to support. Fifty-six experiments were made between Dec. 

 6th, 1829, and April 9th, 1831. Alexis, with his wife and family, were 

 permitted to return home to Quebec on the promise to appear when 

 again wanted. Beaumont had felt that he had accomplished about all 

 he was able in his researches on gastric digestion, and he longed to 

 go to Europe a year and take St. Martin with him, that the work 

 might be pursued farther by more competent physiologic chemists. 

 The brevity of his furlough precluded the idea of going abroad and 

 instead he remained in Washington with Alexis where he found his 

 surroundings very congenial. Access to the works of European 

 physiologists in the library and recognition from many of the promi- 

 nent men at the capital made his sojourn pleasant. '>>. ^ 



Between Dec. 1st., 1832 and March 1st, 1833, we find recorded (f ^ 

 116 experiments, some in confirmation of what had been done before. [ ' 

 He tested the temperature of the stomach when full, when fasting, \ 

 when exercising, when resting, also the length of time required to \ 

 digest various food substances. He also experimented to disprove / 

 the old theory of maceration or mechanical trituration. 



Seeks Assistance of Two Leading Scientists: In 1833 Beaumont 

 sought the assistance of two of the leading scientific men of the 

 United States, Robley Dunglinson, professor of physiology. Univer- 

 sity of Virginia, and Benjamin Silliman, professor of chemistry at 

 Yale. Thanks to Beaumont's painstaking and methodical nature, the 

 correspondence between the two and himself had been carefully pre- 

 served, and it constitutes an excellent account of the physiology of 

 the period. A sample of gastric juice from St. Martin's stomach was 

 sent Dunglinson for analysis with the request to convey to the giver 

 the results and to refrain from publishing anything that would antici- 

 pate the labors of Beaumont himself. He is assured that the profes- 

 sor has but one desire in the prosecution of his profession, by teaching 

 and practice to benefit his fellow men, which could always be done 

 with due credit without forestalling his coadjutors in the field of 

 science, or arrogating to himself merit to which he might be but sec- 

 ondarily entitled. Dunglinson found the sample of gastric juice to 

 contain "free muriatic and acetic acid and phosphates and murates . 

 with bases of potassa, soda, magnesia and lime and animal matter 

 soluble in cold but not in hot water." 



Professor Silliman, to whom a bottle of gastric juice was also 

 submitted, suggested that a sample be sent to Professor Berzelius, of 

 Stockholm, Sweden, "as the man of all others best qualified to investi- 

 gate a subject of such deep interest to mankind." Accordingly a 

 bottle of the digestive fluid was packed for shipment. Beaumont's 

 disappointment may be imagined when it was known that the parcel 

 was delayed over two and a half months. This he learned about the 

 time he was patiently awaiting the results of the Swedish professor's 

 investigations. In the meantime Beaumont had received a letter from 

 Professor Silliman enclosing an abstract of a portion of a system of 

 chemistry by Berzelius, important as presenting a clear idea of the ^ 

 knowledge of the physiology of digestion at that time (1833). The \ 

 communication states, among other things, that Prout, Tiedeman and j 

 Gmelin gave the best notions on the subject of gastric juice and ex- ^ 



