Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/172

 BEAUMONT

BEAUMONT

finally located St. Martin in lower Canada, two thousand miles from Fort Crawford. He had married, was the father of two children and had supported himself by service as a voyageur. At great expense he secured his return and continued the experiments on him from August, 1829 to 1831, when he was al- lowed to take his family and return home. St. Martin's condition may be inferred when it is considered that this journey was made in an open canoe and traversed the Mississippi to the mouth of the Ohio, up the Ohio, across the (now) state of Ohio, down Lakes Erie and Ontario and the River St. Lawrence, the trip taking six weeks. In August, 1832, Beaumont was granted leave of absence and met St. Martin at Plattsburg, New York. From November, 1832, to March, 1834, they were in Washington conduct- ing experiments. In the fall of 1833 was issued the first edition of "Experiments and Observations of the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion," by William Beaumont, M. D., surgeon of the United States Army, Plattsburg, New York. Printed by F. P. Allen, 1833. In all there were about two hundred and forty experiments, besides the microscopic ex- aminations and observations. Early in 1834 he was ordered to Jefferson Bar- racks, a military post now fourteen miles below St. Louis, Missouri. Scarcely had he started for this new post when Lewis Cass, the secretary of war, received through Edward Everett, a petition sign- ed by two hundred members of Congress, asking that Beaumont and St. Martin be sent to Boston, for study by Dr. Charles Jackson. The secretary of war replied that under existing arrangements it was impossible for Dr. Beaumont to visit Boston. Mr. Everett now sought to have Congress appropriate $10,000 to send Beaumont and St. Martin to Europe for study by the best physiologists and chemists of human gastric digestion. The appropriation failed. On July 1 Dr. Beaumont reached Jefferson Bar- racks, but one month later he was sent to Fort Crawford. In 1835 he was made

purveyor of medical supplies for the west- ern district and surgeon to the St. Louis Arsenal. The light duties of these posi- tions permitted him to engage in private practice in which he promptly took a conspicuous position. In 1S39 he was ordered to proceed at once to Florida for duty. This order being maintained in spite of his protests, he resigned and con- tinued practice in St. Louis. During the cholera epidemic of 1849, though sixty- four years old, Dr. Beaumont labored day and night in caring for the sick. In 1844, in conjunction with Dr. S. W. Are- don, he was sued for §10,000 damages by a Mrs. Mary Dugan. The claim was that the doctors had treated an inguinal hernia as an appendicitis; verdict for the defendants, though the pamphlet war lasted many months with great virulence. Of Beaumont's apt perception of stran- gers, Dr. Reyburn says:

"You might introduce him to twenty strangers daily, and he would give an accurate estimate of each; his peculiar traits, disposition, etc., and not a few would receive some fitting sobriquet. Before his time there were recorded many cases of permanent fistula of the human stomach, but Beaumont was the first to embrace the opportunity to study the gastric juice. His daughter, Mrs. Keim, says he once cured a hypochondriacal army officer by horsewhipping him. A wealthy, domineering man, the despair of many doctors, sought Beaumont's aid. He hesitated, but finally yielded to im- portunity on condition that what he pre- scribed would be done. His prescription was a large supply of bread pills and a trip to the Pacific coast — a cure resulted. Among his warm friends was Gen. Robert E. Lee, who from the age of sixteen was quite deaf, due to standing nearer a fourth-of- July cannon than any other boy of his set, on challenge. Not the least of his trials with St. Martin was the settling of his fights with the teasing crowds, who called him "the man with a lid on his stomach" and otherwise sought his annoyance. The practice was not checked till many blows and not a little