"After trying all the means in my power for eight or ten months to
close the orifice, by exciting adhesive inflammation in the lips of
the wound, without the least appearance of success, I gave it up as
impracticable, in any other way than that of incising and bringing
them together by sutures; an operation to which the patient would not
submit. By using the aperture which providence had supplied us with to
communicate with the stomach, I ascertained, by attaching a small
portion of food of different kinds to a string, and inserting it
through his side, the exact time each takes for digestion, such as
beef or pork, or mutton or fowl, or fish or vegetables, cooked in
different ways.1 We all know how long it takes to dress them, but we
did not know how long a time they required for digestion. I will show
you a comparative table."
1 The village doctor appears to have appropriated to himself the
credit due to another. The particulars of this remarkable case are to
be found in a work published in New York in 1833, entitled
"Experiments and observations on the gastric juices, and the
physiology of digestion," by William Beaumont, M. D., Surgeon in the
United States' Army, and also in the "Albion" newspaper of the same
place for January 4, 1834.
"Thank you," sais I, "but I am afraid I must be a moving. "Fact is, my
stomach was movin' then, for it fairly made me sick.
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