William Beaumont: The Father Of Gastric Physiology And His Odd Experiment
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - 11:10
in Biology & Nature
Army physician William Beaumont was stationed at Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island in Michigan in the early 1820s, when it existed to protect the interests of the American Fur Company. The fort became the refuge for a wounded 19-year-old French-Canadian fur trader named Alexis St. Martin when a shotgun went off by accident in the American Fur Company store and duck shot tore into his abdomen at close range June 6th, 1822. That accident is key to much of our early knowledge about the workings of the digestive system, say speakers at the Experimental Biology 2013 meeting. read more