A man survived gunshot wound to the stomach that never healed – and what we learned from it

A tiny island off the coast of northern Lower Michigan served as the backdrop for a fascinating medical history story.

During the American Revolutionary War, Mackinac Island’s prime location in the Great Lakes made it the central hub of the Great Lakes Fur Trade. As the fur industry was quite lucrative, the British sought to retain control of the tiny island by constructing Fort Mackinac to protect their ownership.

On June 6, 1822, a French Canadian fur trader named Alexis St. Martin was shot in the left side of his abdomen outside of the island’s American Fur Company Store.

Fort Mackinac’s surgeon, Dr. William Beaumont, attended St. Martin and brought him to the Fort Hospital. Alexis St. Martin was not expected to survive, but his condition improved under Dr. Beaumont’s care.

However, the abdominal wound never fully healed. A portion of the hole in the stomach attached itself to the edge of the hole in the abdominal wall, thus creating a permanent gastric fistula.

Dr. Beaumont discovered he could dangle food from a string into the fistula and monitor the digestive process. Thanks to Alexis St. Martin, he performed more than 200 experiments on the digestive process over the next 10 years.

In 1835, Dr. Beaumont finally published Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion, unveiling his truly groundbreaking insights into the role of gastric juices, stomach motility, and the digestion process.

Dr. William Beaumont has since been known as “the father of gastric physiology.”

-Nikki Rataj Casady, DMSc, PA-C
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