little or no suffering or inconvenience from his wound." Although these chores were not bothersome, some of the experiments were painful to St-Martin, for example when Beaumont had placed sacks of food in the stomach, Beaumont noted: "the boy complained of some pain and uneasiness at the breast." Other symptoms St-Martin felt during experiments were a sense of weight and distress at the epigastric fossa and slight vertigo and dimness of vision. After the experiments Beaumont published the account of his experiments in 1838 as Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion. Beaumont drew 51 conclusions about digestion based on his observations of Alexis St-Martin and his related research. Many of Beaumont's ideas were revolutionary for their time. He determined that vegetables were digested more slowly than meat, that milk coagulated early in the digestive process, and that digestion is aided by a churning motion within the stomach. Beaumont's research into gastric juices was very advanced for the time. His work confirmed William Prout's theory that gastric juices contained hydrochloric acid, and he discovered further that gastric juice was secreted by the stomach lining. Without Alexis St-Martin, none of this work would have been possible. Eventually Beaumont and St-Martin parted ways: St-Martin wrote to Beaumont from Berthier, Canada, on June 26, 1834, refusing to return to Beaumont. As an army doctor, Beaumont was posted to the Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1834. He became Professor of Surgery in the Medical Department of Saint Louis University in 1837 and resigned from the army in 1839. Repeatedly, Beaumont tried to get St-Martin to move to St. Louis. Beaumont died in 1853. When Alexis St-Martin died at Saint-Thomas, Quebec, in 1880 his family delayed his burial until the body began to decompose in order to prevent his "resurrection" by medical men, some of whom wished to perform an autopsy. Alexis Bidagan dit St-Martin is buried at Saint-Thomas Parish Cemetery in Joliette, Quebec, Canada. The eminent physician Sir William Osler took a great interest in retracing the details of this early incident in the history of gastric physiology and published his research in the form of a well-known essay entitled A Backwoods Physiologist. He also attempted to have the famous stomach placed in the Army Medical Museum in Washington, DC. Notes References Bibliography 1802 births 1880 deaths Human subject research in the United States Settlers of Canada