The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 33 - The Stomach Men

Episode Date: November 16, 2014

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin.Tour Dates Dollop MerchSourcesPatreon

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Carmack's sweet was picked up at the beginning. I just want to say it seems like things are popping over here. And this is something your oh no this is from Carmack's okay never mind. Took a car to trade in the dealer was like you can have a pile of poop and then we went to Carmack's and they I think we got like 3,000 more. This does feel like we're doing a Carmack's commercial anyway check out Carmack's. Hey Carmack's. Maximum car instead of poop it's three grand Carmack's. April 18th 1794. All right yeah you like those. Heading into the 1800s. Alexis St. Martin was born in Berthier a village about 40 miles north of Montreal Canada. It's all

sounding very normal so far. He was third-generation Canadian his grandfather having come from Bayonne in southwestern corner of France. He was the son of Joseph Pierre Bedegin. That's a terrible name it's almost close to beday. They invented Benegins. And Marie Gabou but no more than these few facts aren't as birth certificate are known of his prior life. Okay so we didn't know anything about him until he let's just say hit the big time. Until he deserved a dollop. He would have been a reality show. He would have been a huge reality show guy if he was alive today. In 1822 Alexis is 28 years old working as a voyager for the

American Fur Company. Okay. A voyager was a traveling porter and canoeman whose job it was to row the big cargo canoes along rivers and carry both the vessel and its cargo along banks when a waterfall or rapids got in the way. So these are big strapping dudes. Right so yeah so he basically like he's a waterfall guider. Okay yeah he's the man that gets around the waterfalls. Which is kind of a precarious position. Yeah it doesn't sound like. The fur bundles weighed up to 90 pounds each and voyagers were expected to carry two at a time at least. So that's a lot for canoesmen. Yep hernias were common and

frequently caused death. Interesting. I'm popping. Hernias caused death. I think I'm popping. Oh I guess I'd be in a French accent. Do you want to try it in a French accent? Yeah no you go ahead. Oh man it's already popping. Did you hear pop? It's hurt. Now it feels like cold oil is leaking from it. It's hard to say pop in French pop. They don't they don't hit the the sounds like that right? They just kind of say pop. They roll over consonants more. Pop. Pop. I heard that pop. Voyagers went in teams and they had their own songs and legends and faced their own special dangers. They had their own songs? Yeah they sang.

Oh I thought you meant like individually. No not each guy. It's time for canoesmen. What's my song? Oh god. It's just some artist is like I cannot write any more fucking songs about canoesmen. Larry needs a song. Larry Larry quack contrary in his ca-ha-no. Ah that is mad. Shit. Fuck you. The song fuck piss. St. Martin was passing through a Mackinac Island in 1822 on the day of June the 6th. It's always a bad sign when we have the date now. That's true that's never good because it means it's memorable and if something's memorable on this podcast that's not good. The island lies just off the top of the

Mitten of Michigan in Lake Huron. Yeah Mackinac Island. Yeah you know it. I do know Mackinac. Goddamn right. Another man on the island that day was William Beaumont and this is when I look to see if there's any recognition in your eyes and as usual it's a blank blank slate. There's nothing in there. Billy Beaumont? It's usual. Someday I'll know something Dave. Hi. Beaumont had a very different life than St. Martin. The Beaumonts came from England to the American colonies in 1635. William Beaumont's father and paternal uncles all fought in the Revolutionary War. After the war his father Samuel Beaumont became a farmer in Lebanon

Connecticut. William Beaumont's parents Samuel and LaCretia. Well that's a terrible name. LaCretia? Yeah. That's not good. No. They had a total of nine children. William was their second child. He was born in Connecticut on November 21st 1785. Lebanon was then the sixth largest town in Connecticut. As a boy William's schoolmaster was Silas Fuller who became a medical doctor in Lebanon and served in the war of 1812 as a regiments surgeon. In 1807 William left Lebanon for Champlain. Huh? It's all happening up. Sure yeah. Where you like stuff. Yeah. Where he became known as the town school master and served as secretary for the

local debating society. Cool job. That's a rich guy. That's cool. I'd like to get into debating. Really it's the 1800s. No it's not. It's the 1900s. I'm that good. Sorry. In early 1809 William began reading under the when began reading so it's in quotes reading under Dr. Benjamin Moore of Champlain. So back then there weren't a lot of medical schools in the US so guys who wanted to be doctors would train by reading medical subjects under the direction of a doctor. So it would be like getting personal schooling from a doctor. All right. You're not practicing. You're like no but you're just getting the learning. Sure. Getting the

learning. And then after a while you would apply for an apprenticeship with the doctor. All right. So in the spring of 1811 William began his apprenticeship with Dr. Benjamin Chandler and Dr. Truman Powell in Vermont and in June 1812 the third medical society of Vermont approved William to practice. Physic and surgery. Physic. That's what it says. Sure. Physic and surgery. Physic. You are now ready to Physic. You can't use physics. Just one concept. Just one. That's physics. You get one physics. That's one physics per life. Use it well. On September 13, 1812 at the age of 26 Dr. William Beaumont enlisted as a

surgeon's mate in the US Army. Surgeon's mate. Yep. He was stationed in Plattsburg, New York. Soldiers sometimes slept outdoors without shelter quite miserable during a wet winter and windy winter. It was common for the soldiers to come down with dysentery, plurisy, pneumonia, sore throats and rheumatism. Like a sore throats is on there. Dying. A little raspy voice. Beaumont was proud of the fact that not one of his 200 plus cases died. So he's rolling. Okay. Yeah. So he's a hot doc. He's a hot doc. He's a hot doc. Hot doc coming through. Beaumont saw his first action in the War of 1812 in April 1813. The 6th Regiment led the charge at York

and the British retreated while blowing up the main magazine. The explosion caused heavy casualties and injuries. Beaumont and other surgeons were amputating arms and legs for two days straight. That must be fun. So you got a little experience in the ER. I mean, where's a better place to cut your teeth than the battlefield of the Civil War? I mean, it was just... Okay, let's cut it off. Find a guy who's okay. Yeah. You're like, buddy, this is a miracle. You know how they made people okay? Cut it off. Oh yeah, always. We're gonna cut all of them off. All four. So we're just gonna cut them in half. Look, the bottom of you is broken. So...

We're gonna cut you right in the middle. So we're gonna put wheels on your torso and you'll be able to kind of pedal around with your hands. Bite down on this grape. You'll be the flag holder. You'll hold the flag. And we're just gonna plant that in your shoulder. There you go. Stay there, bud. After the war ended, Beaumont left the Army and in June, 1815, he began private practice in Plattsburg, New York, where he met his future wife, Deborah. Oh, sweet. See? It's all happening. I don't... Listen, I'll tell you what. What I like is that we're changing it up and we're just doing a sweet story about a kid. That's nice. A kid who's

just doing well. Yep. Yep. But... Huh? He re-entered the Army in December of 1819. So clearly the private practice didn't work out. That's a shame. This time as a post-surgeon. He was sent to Fort Mackenac on Mackenac Island in Lake Huron. Mackenac Island served as the home for a US Army fort at that time. Okay. The hospital was then in a converted storehouse that Beaumont described as holy unfit, insupportably cold and smoky in winter and open to every shower in the summer when patients' beds had to be moved to avoid being rained on. Ah. So that seems like a weird way to have a hospital. Missed the private practice, right? What

about a roof? Yeah, that'd be good. Hey, did anybody think about a roof for the hospital? It's really hurting a lot of the sick people. They had a... They had a storage of medical supplies and didn't even have a thermometer for months. That's good. For months. That's good. I can't tell if he's hot. Well, he's dead, so I think we're okay on this one. The temperature's gone down. Yeah, he's really cold. Yeah, he feels cold. You know what? They all feel really cold. They're all... Oh my god, the roof's open. They're dead. There's no roof. They're all dead. There is no roof. Hey, August 1821 Beaumont married Deborah. Finally. Finally getting laid. Then came

that... That's true, right? Yeah. He's like, seven years of pining. Get to put it in. I'm like 40. And I'm done. Then came the fateful day on Mackinac Island, June 6th, 1822. The American Fur Company store was bustling with voyagers and Indians and clerks in the morning. St. Martin was standing in the store. Another man was standing near him holding a shotgun loaded for duck hunting. The muzzle was not over three feet from St. Martin, according to an eyewitness. That's a weird way of putting it, right? Yeah. It accidentally fired. The whole charge entering the side of Martin's chest. The wadding and pieces of clothing entered along with the tiny lead pellets. He fell

to the floor with his shirt catching on fire and everyone there believed St. Martin was as good as dead. Well, not me. William Beaumont. There he is. Came quickly. He examined the hand-sized wound with the edge of a burnt lung protruding from it. Right? His lung is sticking out. It's burning. It burnt already. It cooked. It's a little bit of a cooked lung. Okay. I have faith in Beaumont. Yeah. Burning lung outside the body is hard for me to picture being okay. Can I eat that? Yeah. I mean, it's mine. Can I eat it? Someone get the bacon off his chest. We quickly. Oh, God. Oh, God. That's him. That's not bacon. It smells delicious, but that's that's him. Oh, what do we do? If he dies, we eat it, right? If he dies,

we go get bacon. Beaumont later described this in his own words. The wound was received just under the left breast and supposed at the time to have been mortal. A large portion of the side was blown off. The ribs fractured and openings made into the cavities of the chest and abdomen, through which protruded portions of the lungs and stomach, much lacerated and burnt, exhibiting altogether an appalling and hopeless case. The diaphragm was lacerated and a perforation made directly into the cavity of the stomach, through which breakfast food was escaping. Ah, what? Eggs. Oh, eggs. And how was the last part the most disturbing? Who had biscuits? You had biscuits. Now, listen, if we get out of here alive, I need you to tell me where you got such a yummy

breakfast. Where did you get that? Those hash browns. Jean Claude's. So what an asshole, by the way, whoever this guy is who just shot his. We never hear about that guy again. But that guy was just hanging out. Just holding this gun, just hanging out with, you know, finger on the trigger sprays him. Oh, it's gonna be a good day for gun boom. That's a fiery lung. So I guess my bad. Beaumont told the person assisting him that the man cannot live for 36 hours. I will come and see him by and by. He then the clean the wound as best he could, clips off a bit of rib with his pen knife to ease the lung to ease the lung back inside. So he had to cut. Yeah. Yeah. To get the lung back in. He had to cut. All right. I'm just gonna

clip your ribs. I can push your lung inside you. Then he applied a potease. You know what that is? It's a yes. It's a stuffed duck. There you go. Everyone is surprised when Saint Martin did not die. Yeah, me too. A day later, he struggled to survive pneumonia and fever set in Beaumont blood, Saint Martin, then administered a cathartic. That's something that cleans out the wound. Yeah. The cathartic spilled out of the hole in his stomach. Here it comes. More breakfast. Any food that went in also came out of the stomach hole. Oh God. Here, have this. I'll have it. I'll eat that. You're not going to finish that. If you just, I mean, shoots right through you like a slide. Look at that. Look at this. It's like a sausage thing. Watch this. It's like a sausage trick.

Like I put it in here. Barry, get on your knees and put your mouth right at his stomach hole. I'm going to drop a sausage. It's gonna be adorable. Catch it. Oh, there you go. Look at that. It's good. Oh, he's dead. Tastes a little bit like Saint Martin. So they fed Saint Martin through anal injections for two weeks. Okay. Okay. Now this is back in a time when it's not like the head saline or whatever they needed or some sort of, they didn't have a blender. They didn't have anything that would, I mean, what were they shooting broth up there or like a ham? What do you put in my ass? It's ham. It's ham. Trust me. Put that sandwich between his ass cheeks. I'm going to give it a running kick. So, yeah, so they just decided to put it in the... To backwards feed him. Saint

Martin at this point is probably like, it's cool, man. At this point, just let me die. Have you heard about butthole feeding? Feed you through your ass. I'm pretty sure this will work because here's what I know about the body. There's two holes. Usually food goes in one and comes out the other, but that means they both go to the same place, right? This guy's got a third hole, which is trouble. So what we're going to do is we're going to throw the Hail Mary and put food up his asshole. Who's again it? All right. I'm not only for it, but I have this corn here. All right. Is your ass hungry? Time to eat. Follow the little plane. After 17 days, the wound was healed. Enough for the hole to be bandaged. By the fourth week,

Saint Martin's was eating, eating heartily, digesting and shitting like a boss. By December, Saint Martin miraculously is on the mend with one exception. He only likes to eat through his ass. The hole in his stomach has not closed and it defies all Beaumont's attempts to seal it. Beaumont writes, by the adhesion on the sides of the protruded portion of the stomach to the pleural cosettiles cost talus. Sure. Yeah. Doesn't matter. When we get to words like that on the dollop, we just roll through them and hope that it all worked out. I won't be busting anybody. Right. And the external wound, a free exit was afforded to its contents and thereby a fusion into the abdominal cavity prevented. The stomach became more firmly attached to the pleura and

intercostals by its external coat, but showed not the least disposition to close its orifice by granulations, which terminated as if at a natural bounty and left the perforation resembling in all but a sphincter, the natural anus with a slight prolapsus. Wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. Do you want to tell me or should I guess what's happening? Here's what happened. Because it sounds like I'm about to hear something amazing. If what you just said is what I think it is. He has a side asshole. He has a second stomach asshole. I think that's pretty close. What he's saying is that the hole in the stomach attached itself to the hole in the side of his body. And then it just stayed that way. So there's like a hole that goes from the side of his body

into his stomach. So he has another route. I mean, like a legit route. Yeah, he's got like a second route. He could go into bars and go, gentlemen, I can eat this steak without using my mouth and everything. I will bet you $50 you cannot then he'd pull up a shirt and just start shoving steak in there. That's what he can do. Oh my God. He never did that. But that would be a match. Great idea. If he was alive today, he would be in like a Quiznos commercial. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The only food for side mouth. This is what's known as a permanent gastric fistula. Permanent? Permanent. Beaumont thought it was a good because the food didn't spill out of the body cavity into the body cavity where it didn't belong. So the food that was coming out wouldn't just roll around in his body. It

would come out the hole. Right. So if he ate food that wasn't digested, it would come out. So is that good? Well, because it's not rolling around in the body and rotting. It's like, oh, so wait. So his body's not like his torso is not like a garbage dump. So he's arguably healthier. He's not composting in his torso. Oh, wow. So it's time for us all to get these. The Kardashians have belly ass holes at no time. He's been like out of compost. The perforation he added was about the size of a shilling piece and the food and drinks continually excluded, unless prevented by a plug compressor bandage. Wait, wait, wait. So he would be drinking water and he would be like a fucking cartoon that got shot. Yes, like you just scored out unless he corked it. That's correct. And Beaumont is still

pushing this advantage story. It was a long recovery. During the fourth month, Beaumont was still removing pieces of gunwadding and shot from the abscesses around the wound. It's the doctor's journal described many operations he performed on the chest to remove unstable pieces of ribs and cartilage. Ah, still. Yeah. After about 10 months, St. Martin's wounds were partially healed, but he was still an object of miserable and helpless, according to Beaumont. St. Martin was then declared a common popper by the civil authorities of the country. That's not very nice of them. Do you know what that is, being of English blood? Yes, he's just a shithead. Basically, they're describing you as a pile of shit. Yeah. And you're and then like the government has to

take care of you. You can't take care of yourself. Well, when you're corking your second belly asshole, this man is now garbage. Yeah, I mean, he was just like declaration of the government. This man is human garbage. This is a legal shithead. The authorities decided that because they were neither able or required to look after him, they would send him home to his birthplace at a distance at a distance of more than 1500 miles. So they're like, fuckers, get this pile of human garbage out of here, send him back to the place he began. He's like, no, this is where I cut my asshole. Your fault people that brought left him bring him here. Whatever, wherever he started, it's your fault. It's time for him to go home and tell everyone the good news. I am three hole man.

I have three options. Yes. So that's what they would do. They would like not our business and they send them off and to die wherever he was. So nice for an understanding. Dr. Beaumont believed that the Saint Martins would be killed by the long journey home. So he sort of adopted Saint Martin. God. He took the recovering a voyager into his home as a chore boy to prevent the mechanic authorities from transporting him back to Quebec. Okay, that's nice. It's very sweet. One year after the accident, I'm still dealing with the second asshole news just so you know, I can tell you the second asshole is going to become more of the story. One year after the accident, the injured parts were all healed with the exception of the hole in the stomach inside.

The hole was obviously a bummer for Saint Martin, but for a bummer, a bummer for Beaumont, the hole was an opportunity. I mean, we better be talking medically. You only live once, right, Beaumont? I can put the purple part in. I've got a plug for you. Hey, see Martin, were you sleeping in that girl? Oh, yeah. Thank God he never went to prison, right? Yeah. Oh my God, a prisoner would be like, meet our wife. Meet our wife. The hole was about two and a half inches in circumference. He could look through the hole into the living stomach. Beaumont couldn't believe his luck. He wasn't. He's a fucked up guy. If in this situation, he can't believe his luck. This is awesome. Oh, what have I? I must have done something right in another life. Eureka.

He was encouraged through letters from his friend, Army Surgeon General Joseph Lovell. Beaumont began experimenting on Saint Martin's stomach on Mackinac Island in 1823. He was spooning in food, then siphoning it out again. He attached meat to his string. He's fishing? Dangled it through the hole and pulled it out for observation. So basically, at this point, he's just like, we have an opportunity to really study what the stomach does. And he's just fucking throwing flossed meat into his stomach and yanking it out. Saint Martin is like, why didn't you let me die? Hold on. This is going to be really weird. Let's meet him. Oh yeah, I'm so full. Man, I'm so full. I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry now. Now I'm so hungry. If not for the stomach wound, Beaumont

and Saint Martin would never have met. Officers and officers and the voyagers lived in separate social spheres on the island. Army officers mixed with the island's elite while the voyagers spent their brief time on the island camped along the beach and frequenting the village saloons and gambling halls. So this is like a clash of classes and people. Right. Beaumont saw Saint Martin as some kind of party animal completely worthless except for what his stomach could do for science. What a great life, Saint Martin's probably embarking on. In letters, the doctrine often referred to his patient as the villain, the drunkard and the ungrateful. Wouldn't you get fucking shit-faced if your only purpose in life was to have a doctor study your second stomach asshole?

I'd be drunk all the time. I'd be like, yeah. Villain, come here. What? I want to put this beat to your side. No, no. Fine. In letters, the doctrine, oh, voyagers said that, and when Saint Martin left Beaumont wants to go back to Canada because he's missed his wife and children, Beaumont wrote that his subject absconded. In April 1824, almost two years after the shotgun incident, Saint Martin was promoted from Beaumont's patient to his employee. Oh, great. You're now a hired villain. He worked as sort of a house man performing all kinds of labor from that of a house servant to chopping wood to mowing the field. During his first five months on duty, the doctor noted he did not have a day's sickness sufficient to disqualify

him from his ordinary duties and a hole in his side. Well, I mean, aside from that, he's perfectly normal and fine. Saint Martin had no complaints of pain and no inconvenience except for applying the compresses over the hole. And except for my doctor friend keeps putting meat inside of there on the strings and yanking it out. If I've got a big gripe, it's that this man keeps fish feeding me. He invites friends over, wait until it's properly cooked in this man's stomach and then we'll die on it. Stomach food. Here we go. I've put fondue inside of his hole. We're gonna have a fondue party inside of him. Whenever he took off the dressing, his last meal would pour out. Oh, fuck, I forgot about that. Oh, chili. Oh, boy, that's everywhere. Sorry, I had corked early.

I got chili on the rug. My bad. I had cork too soon. Imagine seeing that. No. Oh, boy, that's everywhere. It's horrifying. Oh, boy. So he had to keep the compress on while he was cleaning up around the doctor's house or tending to the cordwood. Meanwhile, Beaumont was falling in love with the hole. In an article, oh, boy, in an article Beaumont published in the American Medical Recorder in 1825, he closes on an optimistic note. This case affords a most excellent opportunity of experimenting upon the gastric fluids in the projects of digestion. It would give no pain, nor cause the least uneasiness to extract a gill of fluid every two or three days, for it frequently flows out spontaneously in considerable quantities. And one might introduce

various digestible substances into the stomach and easily examine them during the whole process of digestion. I may therefore be able, hereafter, to give some interesting experiments on this subject. Can you imagine if St. Martin accidentally, like, found that quote? He's like, excuse me? The hell is that about? Oh, he couldn't read, though. He's talking about it like it's oil. He's not even talking about it like he's a person. No, he's talking about it like he's struck oil. Yes. Yeah. And so a gill is four ounces. So he says he can just take four ounces of stomach fluid. And he could just drop in other fluids when he wants, swap them in and out. Meanwhile, St. Martin's just like, here's some syrup. You know what I regret is when that guy shot me

in retrospect. Yeah, I'm thinking I wish I had that guy hadn't shot me. You know, now looking back. No, I can't go swimming. He's just like dolphins are becoming up like sniffing his wound like, where's he from? All right, I can swim on my side. No, he's just got to do like the whale shoot out of water every now and then just like. Beaumont showed little concern for St. Martin's physical or emotional well being throughout the experiments. St. Martin felt lightheaded, nauseous, and constipated with a headache as Beaumont freely placed objects of questionable sterility, including thermometers and spoons. Oh my God. Oh my God. Well, this is questionable sterility. This is here. You mind if I put this fork in there? Why? I don't know. It's here. Open

up. I'm going to brush your stomach. There we go. With those teeth. No, stand there. I'm going to throw pebbles in. All right. Now, missed. Got it. All right. I'm going to spit some tobacco in there now. See what that does. I'm going to make a chew gum. Oh, fuck. It's so horrible. Awful. At the same time, St. Martin was ridiculed by his peers over his freakish stomach. So he's getting the best of both worlds. He's getting it all on both ends. He's getting. Shocking. The guy with two assholes getting it on both ends. A guy that treats him worse than like a couch. Yeah. And then on the other side, people are like, hey, stomach hole. He's like, uh, I'm told I'm I'm a medical miracle at home. Yeah, well, I'd hear you just a fucking freak.

Now, take your cork out so we can see what you last chewed. Hey, porpoise man. In 1825, Beaumont was stationed at Fort Niagara. He brought St. Martin with him. There, Beaumont tied quarter ounce pieces of food to the end of a silk string and dangled the food through the hole into St. Martin's stomach. Oh, my God. The food items were high seasoned Alamo beef, salted lean beef. What is he doing raw salted fat pork, raw lean fresh beef, boiled corn beef, stale bread and raw cabbage. What a fucking what is he? I mean, really, at this point, what can be gained from what he's like? He doesn't need to know every type of different meat, what it will do inside of this guy's fucking second stomach anus. Every single thing.

It's a red flag. After meat was placed in, St. Martin went back to his household duties. Beaumont pulled out the string one, two and three hours later to observe the rate of digestion for different foods. Although five hours after he first put the food into St. Martin's stomach, Beaumont removed the pleat pieces because St. Martin was suffering from stomach distress. The next day I wonder why the next day he's still at indigestion. Yeah, I bet he fucking did. Yeah, I have he's what a nightmare. This is like a twilight. You are under my employee. So I will put meats in your side. So I will just be now putting meats inside of your stomach and would you clean the office and I'm going to put this pork in your side.

Do me a favor and dust the table and shake out all the rugs and let me put this prosciutto inside you with my finger. I'm going to put a live bird in you. Lobster claw. Pig foot. We just invented salsa. How to pin your pepper. My penis. My fist. On August 1825 Beaumont had St. Martin fast for 17 hours and then he removed the gastric juice from St. Martin's stomach. He observed the rate of digestion from a piece of corned boiled beef test tube style while he also placed the same size piece of meat directly into St. Martin's stomach. The stomach digested the meat in two hours. The vial of gastric juice took 10 hours. What a great fact we've learned. The next day Beaumont repeated the experiments using chicken

which he found digested slower than the beef. The experiments show that gastric juice needed heat to function. It's weird when you take something out of the body it doesn't work as well. Shocking. What a great what a great lesson. I'm now going to take out your eyeball and see if it can look around the room when it's on the floor. But first let's put some ham inside you. See what that does. Beaumont's experiments settled a scientific debate on both sides of the Atlantic over the nature of digestion until Beaumont published his observations in his books experiments and observations on the gastric juice of the physiology of digestion. Great title. He could have been titled killing a guy named St. Martin. But how is that not a movie? That's a great title for a movie.

What are you going to see? Experiments and observations of the gastric juice and the physiological of digestion starring Matt Damon and Richard Gere. Most scientists believe that digestion was either mechanical or chemical. The first attributed digestion to a grinding in the stomach to latter two solvent properties of gastric juice. So Beaumont proved once and for all the digestion in the stomach was chemical. So there's experiments paid off for something we didn't really need to know. A product mostly of the gastric juice itself which Beaumont surmised was completely was composed largely of hydrochloric acid. So he thought that the stomach was made up of hydrochloric acid. The discovery lifted the doctor from obscurity

and he became seen as the father of American physiology. I think I have a different name for him. Well, uh, Holmaster. The father of stomach fondueing. Holmaster. What the fuck? Call me Holmaster. And he and he's now famous. Now he's out of obscurity now. Meanwhile St. Martin is just walking around with a fucking whiskey cork in his stomach. Get away from that man's hole. It's mine. Don't even look at it. I'm Dr Beaumont. Hello. Keeper of the hole. This is Villain. The man with a stomach asshole. He's quite a dick for having a hole in his side. He's real. Hey guys, I'll tell you one of his pet peeves is shoving chicken in his stomach. Real weird about it. To accommodate his experiments Beaumont schemed various ways to keep St. Martin close at hand. But in September,

St. Martin returned home to Canada. So Beaumont was unable to experiment on him further at this time. Thank God. St. Martin got married and had three children. So there was a lady out there that was like, I don't care if you have a hole. Yeah. I love you the way you are. I want to settle down so bad. Yes. Oh God, let's not eat before we fuck. Oh, your corks out. Your corks out. Oh, your fucking corks out. Oh, the smell. Oh my God. Jesus put the cork back in. Good Lord. What did you eat? Oh, we'll finish. But my God. In 1826, Beaumont was assigned to Fort Howard Green Bay, which was then in Michigan territory. The medical problems he saw at Fort Howard included fevers, diarrhea, dysentery, and rheumatism. Beaumont connected the health issues with the

sudden changes in weather, cold weather, hot weather that turned the water bad, damp weather, et cetera. Beaumont thought that the numerous wounds and sprains he saw were caused by alcohol abuse. As soldiers in those days were rationed an entire gill of whiskey per day by the government. Wow. Two gills a day if a soldier was on manual labor for 10 days or more. Can we just at least say that we used to take better care of our veterans? More than we do now. That's four ounces of booze a day or eight if they're working hard. Government sanctioned booze. That's fucking awesome. As a doctor, you need whiskey. But he is one of the guys who helped stop it because the the the military stopped the whiskey ration in 1830. So he was saying everyone's getting injured

because they're drunk. Yeah. And then they took them off the ration because this guy's a douchebag. I'm sure. I bet. Yeah, I bet that went over real well. In 1828, Dr. Beaumont was transferred to the fifth regiments headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. But while he was headed to St. Louis, he stopped at Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chaine, Wisconsin. Did I say that right? Sure, yeah, Prairie du Chaine. Yeah, sure. Prairie du Chaine. He said it a little bit different. Du Chaine. Prairie du Chaine. Prairie du Chaine. Perfect. You nailed it, David. The commander of Fort Crawford ordered Beaumont to stay so their medical officer could go on leave. So he gets there. He's stopping by. He's like, Hello, I'd like to see the fort. They're like,

you're staying here for a while. Yeah. And Jeff is going out on a vacay. That's why you don't do poppins. Yeah, don't do a poppin. No poppins in 1828. Bad move. The stopover ended up lasting four years. Oh, that's cool. So he related a bunch on the horizon, huh? Fort Crawford's biggest medical problem was malaria. In 1830, almost 75% of the fort's troops had malaria. It was at Fort Crawford, where Dr. Beaumont became a lifelong friendship with Captain Ethan Allen Hitchcock, whose grandfather was the famous Revolutionary War hero, Ethan Allen of Vermont. Ethan Allen also great suits. So he's rolling in high swing and circles. Yeah, yeah. In Canada, St. Martin took up his old profession in furs with another firm. Okay. He stayed in Canada for four

years until Dr. Beaumont traced him through agents of his former employer, the American Fur Company. The agents hired St. Martin on Beaumont's behalf and transported him and his wife and children all the way to Fort Crawford about 2000 miles away by boat. Nope. They arrived there in 1829, August. And the doctor happily observed that no change in the hole had developed during the time his precious hole was away. Oh my God, my hole's back. Hey, I'm back. Hello, darling. I love my hole. I'm here. Say hi to me. I wish that top hole would shut up so I could just talk to the hole that really matters. I wish this hole was connected to a better man. Can you imagine what a night like good news, Dr. Beaumont to summon you. Hey, honey, there's something I should tell you.

So before we met, I was sort of a stomach rat. I was kind of a meat locker for a doctor. And he wanted me back. And now you, me and the kids who are probably having a tough time at school because their father has a second anus right are going to go see him. It's going to be great. You'll love him. It's like a vacation where someone puts meat in my side. It's like a vacation, but a living nightmare. The St. Martin family remained at Fort Crawford for almost two years and had their fourth child there. The second series of experiments was performed under the same arrangement as before with St. Martin as the general servant and the human guinea pig of Beaumont. Beaumont experimented to determine if there was any relation between digestion and weather.

I mean, now he's just fucking bored. I mean, seriously, does digestion affect migratory patterns? Let's put some foul inside of your stomach gash with the weather. I needed you here because I was wondering if when someone ate it changed the weather. It's cloudy out. How do you think you'll digest pasta? Have this sirloin. There's a nor'easter coming. By observing St. Martin on different days and times and in various weather conditions, Beaumont saw that dry weather increases stomach temperature and human weather lowers it because he has a hole in his side. Yeah, who gives a fuck regardless? Who get like no shit? Beaumont used more variety of food samples while at Fort Crawford. That's the last thing he needs as a sampler plant.

Sliders, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers. What won't fuck up this stomach? He found that vegetables are less digestible than other foods and milk coagulates before the digestive process. Something St. Martin was glad he found out inside of his stomach. St. Martin sometimes became irritable doing the experiments. What a bitch. It was actually stressful for him to have food removed for his stomach. It was stressful, was it? It was apparently this is going to sound weird. It's painful and irritating if a guy pulls food out of your stomach on a string. I'm just not seeing it. I think he's being a little bit of a baby.

Beaumont observed that being angry can hinder one's digestion. St. Martin is fucking pissed that he's like, you know, I will say this. It's fascinating what your anger does to digestion. He's like, enough with the digestion shit. Oh God. It was at Fort Crawford that an incident occurred between St. Martin's brother Etienne St. Martin and Charlie Charrette. Charlie had been teasing and ridiculing, quote, the man with the lid on his stomach. Wouldn't you? Yeah. It was a comic? Yeah. Etienne then stabbed Charlie, wounding him quite severely and swore that he would kill the whole brigade if they didn't lay off his brother. Wait, he stabbed him? Yeah, he stabbed the guy I was making fun of.

In the stomach. Well, yeah, he's, well, I would have stabbed him in the stomach, the guy making fun of my brother, right? Here's a hole for you. I'm just, I'm just hoping that in some, in some dimension, that caused an asshole on that guy's stomach. Everybody, everybody he got stabbed after 1822 got an asshole. If you were, if you were mean about St. Martin and you got stabbed, you got a stomach asshole. You got an asshole. You got a tumble hole. In April, 1831, St. Martin and his family left for their home in Canada, traveling by canoe or portage all the way to Montreal. The reason for the second departure was Miss St. Martin's homesickness and discontent. Probably because

a guy was fishing in her stomach, in her stomach. Why are you okay with this? We should go in my opinion. Do you have any self esteem whatsoever? I married you and I didn't think I married a man who just thought he was a hole. Sorry, honey, he's got to go take some bacon out of me. All right, you hold that thought. This guy's going to take the fish out and then I will be right back to put him in that he's going to take a full fish out of me. Then we can go. When St. Martin left, Beaumont proudly described the method as a way of showing the completeness of his recovery. The way that he got back home, he thought if he was able to travel all that distance by boat and whatever else, that that proved that he had saved this man. It's all

about him again. It sounds like a great guy. St. Martin took his family in an open canoe via the Mississippi, passing St. Louis, ascending the Ohio to the lakes and descending the Erie in Ontario and the River St. Louis to Montreal where they arrived in June. Lovely. That's a long trip. Yeah, especially when you have a hole in your stomach that has a cork in it. But Beaumont was not happy about St. Martin leaving again. And in later years, Beaumont reminded his subject of, quote, the embarrassment and interruption that have occurred here to the prosecution of my experiments upon you on account of having your family with you. You know your wife became so discontented and determined to go back that you were obliged

to yield to her and disappoint me. Sir, I realize that you have a family, but I'm putting things in the side of you. What is more important? How do you even make that argument? He's mad at the wife because she was like, quit putting shit in my husband. Oh, here we go. Nag, nag, nag. Nag, nag, nag. Oh, well, next thing you're going to tell me is that he's a human being. Boy, I'll tell you, ever since you got Yoko involved, things have been a little bit different around here. When he met that wife, he must have been like, well, I don't like this at all. She seems to have a real problem with me putting meat inside of this hole. You better not tell him it's horrible. Okay, I'm going to put quail in here. Don't tell your wife

this time. All right, I'm going to try to cook a fried egg inside of your stomach. Don't be weird and tell the missus. Did I mention that St. Martin was an illiterate French Canadian? Dr. Beaumont did not speak French. So this whole time, they had no way of communicating unless there was an interpreter there. Well, I guess when you speak the language of asshole meat, it's kind of universal. In late 1832, Beaumont took leave from the army in order to conduct further experiments on the digestive system. He found St. Martin. Good news. I'm coming back. I'll come to you this time. He found St. Martin in October and talked him into coming back. Oh my god. St. Martin was very, very poor with a family to support, so he couldn't refuse the money Beaumont offered.

Wow, that's just a precarious position to be in. It is a feel good story. Yeah, yep. On October 16, 1832, St. Martin signed a contract for a one year term at $150 plus food and lodging. Yeah, well, the food, that's a real gray area. Dipping it inside you when you don't want it in you. Oh god, I should have stipulated in the contract that the food goes in my mouth. Oh no, fine print, illiteracy, language barriers. St. Martin agreed to follow the doctor wherever he might go anywhere in the world. Beaumont dropped off his wife, Deborah, and children in Plattsburgh with Deborah's family and then traveled with St. Martin to Washington, D.C. So it's just the two of them alone now. It's life on the road.

Beaumont made his use of his friendship with search and general Joseph Lavelle to have St. Martin enrolled in the U.S. Army in 1833 as a sergeant. He would receive $12 per month and his only duty was to make himself available to Dr. Beaumont as an experimental subject. Oh my god. Like, honestly, like Ufti Gufti would be like, I'm good. Oh, it's great to be poor. Make him a sergeant and just make sure his only job is when I want to put food inside of his stomach. I can't. And then maybe if he tries to leave, I can say he's AWOL and arrest him. Hey, food hole, come here. Come here, hole. Villain. And I didn't just call him Sergeant Hole. Villain. Here, boy. St. Martin's responsibilities to the Army were never taken seriously by anyone

high or low. The enlistment. I wonder why. The enlistment records state that he was five feet, five inches in height, which actually was tall for them. Okay. In Washington, Beaumont again tried different foods with St. Martin, including raw oysters. Oh my god. Sausage, mutton, mutton, and boiled salted fat pork. Beaumont focused on gastric juice. Sometimes he put food directly into the stomach once he put in 12 raw oysters. Is he like at an all you can eat place? I wonder if he, I wonder if he like threw them, or if he placed them in gently. No, he probably like made, he probably like put a little Tabasco in each one, a little lemon, and then shot it in one by one, just like the book. You want a Corona

with that? Is there, is anything new being gained from this? Fuck. I mean, I can't tell. It seems like at some point you've learned all that you can learn from the stomach oracle. Well, fairly not. Did you know about oysters? Yeah, no, I mean, okay. So now we're on the oysters. Oysters take longer to digest. I have a wife. I have kids. Sergeant Hall, come here. He observed that exercise helped the production and release of gastric juice. Now you got to go running for him. From Beaumont's records, it became apparent that the relationship between the two men did not flourish. Why? St. Martin was drinking heavily and was angry and impatient. Moods that showed up in his digestion. Moods, you know, that really

affects your digestion. Fuck you. Son of a bitch. Get fucking with me. Beaumont's insensitivity towards St. Martin was typical of the age. The rich did not treat the poor with any sort of respect. St. Martin signed a second contract on November 7, 1833. It paid him a rate of 400, and the term to follow the doctor anywhere in the world was for two years. Oh my god. So enough the contract was signed, the doctor was transferred to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. Before leaving Beaumont went shopping in the capital for scientific books to bring along to the frontier and he arranged for St. Martin to meet him in Platsburg after taking a short leave of absence. The Canadian never appeared. Good. St. Martin's disappearing act came at

a very embarrassing moment for Beaumont. Yeah, poor Beaumont. Because he had been approaching the US Congress for research funding and trying to arrange for demonstrations in major cities both sides of the Atlantic and it all depended on the use of St. Martin in his wonderful hole. Yeah. He was going to take him on like a tour. Yeah, a great tour. A fucking hole tour. Yep. Yeah. Who wants to put meat in five cents? Now, what would you rather see? Courtney loves band or that? Hey, I brought a pair from my house. Is it can I? Absolutely. Yeah, we do an audience participation thing at the end where you guys can just throw whatever you want. Yeah, just give me a second. Let me do my spiel and then I'll start taking some questions and at the end we'll

do a signing and then we'll do a thing where anyone can just put whatever they want in the hole. Okay, this is a hood ornament, isn't it? That's fine. Yeah, but no, whatever. I, he doesn't have any feelings. Uh-huh. He's not a human man. Oh, perfect. Yeah, yeah. He's just- What is he? Is he poor? He's very poor. Yeah. Oh, then I can just put whatever I want. Whatever you want. No money, though. It's nice to be rich. In mid-April, 1833, Beaumont went to Plattsburgh, New York, where he was reunited with his family and began work on publishing his observations in a book. This is when he published the book. So after all these years, he published experiments and observations on the gastric juice and the physiology of

digestion. It contained some 240 experiments all performed on St. Martin's stomach and earning the army surgeon prestige. He worked with St. Martin and proved that digestion was a chemical process ending a debate on this matter, which dated from the earliest annuals of medicine. In 1835, he was appointed the medical officer of the St. Louis arsenal. He remained there until his death in 1853, resigning his commission in 1840. He lived on a farm outside the city and was very active in medical societies in the region. A number of letters survived Beaumont. They covered the next two decades as Beaumont tried unsuccessfully to lure St. Martin to his home in St. Louis for more experiments. I've got some fish paste. I'll put candy in there. In 1843, letter to Beaumont,

St. Martin explains his unwillingness to travel. He's blaming it on travel. I have not forgotten you. I have had some sickness in my family. I lost two of my children and one was unwell myself for the best part of a year. Blah, blah, blah, family blah, blah, blah, where's my hole? Every morning I wake up and I miss my sweet hole. What's that, honey? Nothing, nothing, dear. Not that hole. Just reading a letter. Every time I have sex with you, my dear Deborah, I think there is a better hole. Excuse me? Never mind. Happy anniversary. Sorry. Oh, God. Beaumont sent agents to bring St. Martin back. All the agents reported that the family was very poor and one letter that all of them were destitute of clothing. Oh my God. So they were like in tatters, no money walking around

with hardly any clothing on, but the guy was still like, I'm not going back to the whole man. No, no. No, I can't do it. No more. Once Beaumont sent his son, Israel, as an envoy, but Beaumont and St. Martin could never come to term. St. Martin wouldn't return without his family and Beaumont didn't want the family. Yeah, I mean that was the sticking point. He's like, I'm bringing my family. He's like, no, you're not. That woman made you go home. She poisons you. She keeps saying things about, I know she doesn't like me. She gives you what's known as self-confidence, which I find enraging. She makes you believe you're a human and you're not. You're a hole that breathes for the last time. Science made you for me. Now let me spit in that hole. Oh, God. That'd be kind of cool. I've got to piss in your hole now.

All right. Pissing in your hole. On the rare occasion, agreement was met on the family matter that the doctor wouldn't advance enough money to make the visit happen for fear the irresponsible St. Martin would squander the funds. Two other medical groups attempted to obtain the services of St. Martin. Okay. In 1837. He's like a hot commodity out there. Talk to my agent. He's a real free agent. Yeah. In 1837, a group of physicians that promoted vegetarianism sought to bring St. Martin to and his hole to Boston in the hopes of disproving Beaumont's conclusion that meat was easier to digest than veggies. Yeah. So after all this shit, he's fucking wrong. Oh, fuck. What the fuck? Point counterpoint. Starring the hole.

Salad in the hole. Salad in the hole. Also, the Medical Society of London raised three to 400 British pounds to lure St. Martin over and show them the hole in 1840. He did not do it. Please come to our country. Show us your hole. Please take a possibly deadly voyage across the ocean with your hole. We understand. Show us your hole. Diseases rampant on these vessels, but please bring your exposed wound hole to the queen. Just pop some oranges in there so you don't get scurvy. Pops your uncle. Show us the hole. Oh, there it is. Crikey. It's beautiful. What a wonderful hole. Absolutely lovely. My lord. Sorry I dropped a tooth in it. Things are not. Things are not all rosy for Beaumont. In 1840, he was called in as a physician

to assist the publisher of a St. Louis newspaper who'd been struck on the head with an iron cane by a politician who his newspaper had maligned. How fucking awesome is that? Freedom of the breath. If a guy's writing shitty stuff about you in a paper, you get to crack him over the head with an iron cane. Beaumont performed an operation cutting a hole in the patient's skull to remove the pressure. The publisher died and the politician went on trial for murder. In their defense, his lawyers accused Beaumont of drilling the hole in the man's head just to see what was inside. Just as he left the hole in St. Martin's side. It's a good argument. It worked. Oh shit. The politician got off of the $500 fine. A fine?

Don't do that again. Wow, that's crazy though. There's just such an airtight argument. Yeah, there is. He's obsessed with holes. He's got a history of hole shit. I love his holes. He wanted to put it in the hole and a guy got a chance. What do you say? Iron cane didn't kill him. The hole doctor did. Hole man. Over the years Beaumont had been accused of not closing the hole after the wound healed so he could exploit it. I can't really argue. A charge? I don't think is false. Let me just see what a little cheeseburger does on the old brain. After that, oh other than that Beaumont's later life in St. Louis was comfortable. He was happily married and had three children he adored. While Beaumont's book never made him much money, it brought him prominence

with translated into a busy physician's practice. Beaumont died in 1853, about a month after he hit his head on an icy step after visiting a patient. Toward the end of his life, Dr. Beaumont regretted his refusal to budge on his exclusion of St. Martin's family from the deal. That's his regret. Yeah. I should have let him come. I should have. I could have spent another 20 years in the hole. God. God damn it. What? Do you have any last words? I miss my home. Not Rosebud? Let's just tell it. Let's tell his wife. She said, I love you. What is he on his death bed? He goes Rosebud. And then cut to them seeing in tattoo above the hole. It's his Rosebud. Or it's Rosebud. Fuck. St. Martin now lived the doctor by 27 years. He did not have a happy life. In 1856,

a man going by the name of Bunting and masquerading as a doctor. That's amazing already. Hello, I'm Bunting. I'm a doctor. Dr. Bunting, you may call me. He toured St. Martin around 10 cities treating him like a circus freak. Bunting had been pulling scams for years. In January 1850, he came to Montreal and advertised in a newspaper a cure for stammering and stuttering. That's awesome. But how does it work? Just give me the money. They stopped in each city for a few days. Boston, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Louisville, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Toronto. In each city, doctors pointed out that Bunting was a fake and that the 60-year-old man with the hole in his torso was a sorry drunk. The considerable press exposure drew the attention

of circus master P.T. Barnum. Oh, God. But St. Martin never got called up to the big top. They're not having him? He should have. I mean, we're gonna do one on P.T. Barnum because he had He's a good guy, right? He was a monster. He's a nice guy. St. Martin and the imposter, Swindler, and Villain, as Bunting would become known in the press, visited Miss Beaumont in St. Louis in June 1856 to pay respects to the widow of his former boss. St. Martin was described by the doctor's son as thin, meager-faced, much bronze little Frenchman. I can't believe he's going there to pay respects. He was still a nice guy. That's crazy, though. St. Martin. Your husband was a great man. That's a lot of people. To me, it was a living prison. Total hell.

Could you toss one of those biscuits in here? St. Martin asked after the other children wish the whole family well. The whole family. The whole family. All family. Except for the dead guy. He can go fuck himself. St. Martin made some money from the tour, but it wasn't enough to lift him out of poverty in his old age. Israel and St. Martin corresponded for the rest of St. Martin's life. Alexis St. Martin died at St. Thomas de Joliette, Quebec on June 24th, 1880. His family purposely left his body out to decompose during a hot spell of weather before burying him in an unmarked grave. They went the slow cremation route? Well, to keep the curious from exhuming it. That's smart. The body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that it could not be

brought into the church for his funeral mass, but instead was left outside during the service. What a really nice visual, really sweet way to go. Just his body's out there, and they're all inside, and the dog runs up and humps the hole. Oh, yeah. He just comes out. You're like, where is St. Martin? Oh, god. The dog's got him in the bushes. He won't let him go. The family refused many requests by medical professionals to buy the body or just the stomach. Dr. William Osler, for example, wanted the three-hold gut to reside permanently in the Army Medical Museum in Washington. In 1962, St. Martin finally got his due when the Canadian Physiological Society decided it was time to mark his grave. A committee

finally persuaded one of St. Martin's granddaughters to disclose the grave location, and a plaque was placed on the church's wall near the grave stating St. Martin's history, and that through his affliction, he served all of humanity. How do you feel? People are good. I just feel so bad for him. He got nothing good out of it. Just poor as fuck. It's bad enough to get shot, and you're like, oh, it was rough. I got shot. But then to have a permanent hole, and some dude's like, this is great. So I've got some food for your hole. That's crazy. Yeah. Wow. Jesus. I mean, I don't know. Why do you keep fighting this?

What the fuck? Horrible, horrible human. Yeah, horrible man. Any last words? I think it might actually be a little speechless. Fair enough.