Question

Alexis St.Martin is famous for
A. His views on evolution
B. Work on animal breeding
C. Open stomach for experiments on digestion
D. Being first person to study digestion

Answer 1

Alexis Bidagan St. Martin (8 April 1802-24 June 1880) was a Canadian voyageur known for his involvement in human digestion experiments performed on him between 1822 and 1833 by the American Army physician William Beaumont.

Complete answer:
In a near-fatal accident in 1822, St. Martin was wounded. His wound had not fully healed, leaving an opening in his stomach. St. Martin's stomach experiments contributed to a better knowledge of the stomach, gastric juices and digestive processes. On June 6, 1822, at the fur trading post on Mackinac Island, St. Martin was accidentally fired with a musket at close range. The musket shot's charge left a hole across his side that healed to form a fistula opening in his stomach.

The wound was treated by William Beaumont, a US Army surgeon stationed at a nearby army post. Though St. Martin was a healthy young man in his 20s, due to the severity of his wound, he was not expected to recover. In a later article, Beaumont states that the shot blew bits of St. Martin's muscles off and fractured a few of his ribs. Beaumont marked the improvement of St. Martin after bleeding him and giving him a Cathartic. For the next 17 days, his fresh gastric fistula re-emerged from all the food he consumed.
The food eventually started to remain in St. Martin's stomach after 17 days, and his intestines began to return to their normal functions.
The edge of the hole in the stomach had connected itself to the edge of the hole in the skin as the wound healed itself, forming a permanent gastric fistula.
At the time, there was very little scientific understanding of digestion and Beaumont accepted the chance he had in St. Martin-he could actually observe digestion processes by hanging food into St. Martin's stomach on a string, then later taking it out to see how digested it was. Beaumont continued to work on St. Martin off and on until 1833, conducting in 10 years an estimated 200 experiments.

Hence, the correct answer is option (C)

Note: He determined that vegetables were digested more slowly than meat, that early in the digestive process milk coagulated, and that a churning motion inside the stomach improves digestion. Research into gastric juices by Beaumont was cutting edge. His work supported the hypothesis of William Prout that gastric juices contained hydrochloric acid, and he also discovered that the stomach lining was secreted by gastric juice.