Shotgun Science

Think about what you do when you wake up with a headache, or a stuffy nose, or any other minor discomfort.

You head straight to your medicine cabinet where you reach for exactly the right pill, liquid, or salve to take care of the problem.

Into or onto your body it goes, zero hesitation.

Then you go about your day.

You don't worry about it at all.

You trust that the medicine works, that it's safe.

Yet, not so long ago, this wouldn't have been the case.

In early 19th century America, medicine's relationship with science was tenuous at best.

And when it came to developing new cures and advancing medical knowledge, well, it was the Wild West.

So what changed?

How did modern medicine become modern?

This is the story of a renegade doctor who refused to be confined by boundaries of traditional medicine or ethics.

It's a story of exploitation, experimentation, and digestion.

And it started with a bang.

On today's episode, Shotgun Science.

This is a twist of history.

In 1822, Michigan Territory is an untamed frontier.

And on the morning of June 6th, the American Fur Company store on Mackinac Island is packed, shoulder to shoulder, with fur traders, hunters, and laborers.

These are hard, rugged men, all here to buy, sell, and make the connections that fuel the region's fur trade.

Among the crowd is 20-year-old Alexis St.

Martin, who's picking his way over crates of nuts and dried fruit, nodding politely to the other traders and shop employees.

Alexis is a voyager, meaning he works and lives on a canoe, shuttling traders and goods around the Upper Great Lakes and beyond.

He's short with dark hair.

Countless hours rowing on the water have made him muscular.

For Alexis, it's exciting to be on dry land for a change, standing in the midst of a bustling trading post like this.

His eyes dance across the rows of shelves stocked with jars of preserves, beaver pelts, and fishing supplies.

As he passes the moccasins, the scent of leather fills his nostrils.

He navigates the crowded aisles with an easy, almost imperceptible smile on his lips, picking out enough food and tobacco to get him through the next week or two.

And of course, he makes sure to pick up some ammunition as well.

Virtually everyone in the store is carrying a musket or shotgun.

While nobody expects violence at the trading post, these men travel far and wide, and you never know when you might encounter danger in the wild outdoors.

Out here, there's little in the way of law enforcement or medical providers or infrastructure of any kind.

So if you find yourself hurt or in trouble, you're on your own.

But this is exactly what Alexis is after.

The frontier is dangerous, but also holds the promise of adventure.

Out here, a man has to rely on himself, and the young man welcomes the challenge.

He grabs one final item, a pint of whiskey, off the shelf, then strides to the back of the line.

Alexis is still waiting for his turn at the register when suddenly there's a loud crack from about three feet away.

He barely has time to process that it sounded like a gunshot before a searing hot pain radiates through his abdomen and he collapses to the ground, unconscious.

15 minutes later and less than a mile away, a physician named Dr.

William Beaumont is sitting at his desk in his home, reviewing the meticulous notes he's been taking on one of his patients when he's interrupted by a frantic knocking on his door.

He gets up and opens it and sees on his doorstep an employee from the trading post, panting for breath and bent over with his hands on his knees.

Between gulps of air, the employee explains that they need Dr.

Beaumont's services right away.

Someone's shotgun accidentally discharged in the American fur company store, and a young man is badly wounded.

Beaumont is the only doctor on the entire island.

He never would have chosen to be here if the Army hadn't stationed him at Fort Mackinac.

And yet, He's come to appreciate certain things about being a big fish in a small pond.

It means he's an undisputed authority.

He knows more about the human body than anybody else around, and his position brings him respect, which he wouldn't get so easily if he worked in a traditional hospital.

This is because most doctors would consider Beaumont's training to be inferior, even barbaric.

Most med students of his era spent a great deal of time in classrooms learning the theory of medicine.

This is done in a controlled environment, through books and lectures, without all of the messiness of a real sick person with a real ailment.

After all, it's it's widely believed that the human body is divinely created, and tampering with it in the name of learning is a kind of desecration.

Autopsies, for example, are seen as sickening at best and sinful at worst.

Almost no one learns medicine by practicing on actual humans, except for Dr.

Beaumont.

A little more than a decade earlier in 1810, while other prospective physicians his age were sitting at desks learning the ancient Greek theory of the four humors, blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm, which were believed to cause illness and disease when they became unbalanced, 25-year-old Beaumont was on his feet, beginning a two-year internship that involved treating real patients and gaining hands-on experience.

During his internship, Beaumont learned how to set a broken bone and stitch-closed a wound.

And this, as far as he's concerned, is real medicine.

To Beaumont, old ideas don't matter if they can't be supported by real-world evidence.

But perhaps that's why he's been relegated to such an out-of-the-way corner of the globe as Mackinac Island.

For the past three years, in lieu of a higher-profile posting, Dr.

Beaumont has been stationed on the island as an army medic.

During that time, he's treated soldiers with gruesome battlefield injuries and performed dozens of sinful autopsies.

He's intimately familiar with the inner workings of the human body.

and he believes that if more doctors were able to just stomach the idea of experimentation over theory, then mankind's understanding of medicine could expand in ways he can't even imagine.

Of course, Beaumont is hardly in any position to change the course of modern medicine.

He's no researcher or academic.

No one will ever listen to him.

He's just a lowly medic stationed on some forgotten island at the edge of civilization.

Perhaps someday he'll get the opportunity to prove himself as more than that.

But right now, in this moment, he has a patient in need and nothing else matters.

So he grabs his bag and hurries off for the trading post to see to the wounded man.

When Beaumont arrives at the American Fur Company store, Alexis St.

Martin is still alive.

Some bystanders have managed to find an empty cot and they lower the young man onto it so he'll be a little more comfortable while the doctor tends to him.

Beaumont kneels and examines the gunshot wound.

The situation is clearly dire.

The hole from the shotgun blast is so big around that Beaumont can actually see his patient's internal organs inside the hole.

And he notes that Alexis's lung and stomach have both been torn open by the buckshot.

As Beaumont watches, Alexis's torso begins filling with chewed and deteriorating bits of bread, bacon, and eggs.

Alexis's partially digested breakfast is oozing out through the rips in his intestines.

As soon as he sees the extent of the injuries, Beaumont's pessimism gets the better of him.

He knows Alexis is as good as dead, and there's almost no point in treating him.

In the early 19th century, the human body is an enigma, especially the internal organs like the stomach.

Nobody knows exactly how it works, which means nobody knows how to surgically repair it when it's injured or infected.

And even if Beaumont could surgically close up all of Alexis's wounds, all he would buy the young man is a slow death by infection.

Germ theory doesn't exist yet, so surgery is performed barehanded with dirty instruments that cause infection.

And penicillin, which treats infection, won't be discovered for another 106 years.

All that Dr.

Beaumont can do for Alexis is try to treat his pain so he can have a peaceful death.

Alexis has fallen unconscious, so Beaumont can't give him oral pain medication like morphine.

He can't inject the morphine because the syringe hasn't been invented yet.

So he pushes the young man's organs back into the hole with his finger.

He applies some numbing lotions and dresses the wound.

Then, Beaumont excuses himself.

He has many other patients to tend to after all, patients who actually have a chance at surviving.

He tells the bystanders he'll return as soon as he can and leaves.

An hour or two later, Beaumont returns to the store.

He expects Alexis to be dead.

But when Beaumont approaches the cot, he finds that Alexis is breathing easily.

He hasn't bled through his bandage and he has no fever.

He's still unconscious, but he's doing surprisingly well.

Beaumont is stunned.

There's no explanation for why Alexis is not only alive, but apparently recovering.

It could be a miracle, a sign of God's grace.

Or, Alexis's improvement could have an explanation that's grounded in science, but undiscovered.

But there's no way for Beaumont to know, given the state of gastrointestinal research.

Either way, he replaces Alexis' dressings with clean ones and checks to confirm that the patient is stable.

Stepping back from the cot, Dr.

Beaumont begins looking looking at this patient with new eyes.

As unbelievable as it seems, the young man with a hole in his stomach just might live.

And this is when Dr.

Beaumont's curiosity kicks in.

He starts to wonder, if there's an actual chance that this man might survive, should he be so bold as to operate on him?

He's never performed surgery like this before.

In fact, Beaumont has never even heard of someone attempting to operate on a living person's stomach.

But then again, Alexis seems to be remarkably resilient.

Beaumont has never been the sort to let anyone tell him what is or isn't possible.

He lives to test boundaries, so he resolves to do whatever he can to try to save his patient's life, no matter how radical it might seem to the rest of the world.

Beaumont knows his patient is too badly hurt to be moved, so he'll need to perform surgery right there in the store.

He's just grateful that Alexis is already unconscious.

This will make the operation a little bit easier.

There's no such thing yet yet as anesthetic, so conscious surgery patients must be physically restrained for a doctor to begin cutting.

For now, Alexis is still.

Beaumont uses his surgical instruments to remove the scraps of cloth that are still buried in his wound.

Next, he withdraws as much of the buckshot and shattered bone fragments as he's able to reach.

He's meticulous and careful in his work, and he has to be.

Each time Alexis coughs, his body seizes and Beaumont has to pause before resuming his surgery.

Finally, Dr.

Beaumont stands and announces to the gathered crowd that he's leaving once again.

But this time, it's not because he's giving up on Alexis.

He needs to run back to his office and fetch additional tools.

There's more surgical work he wants to perform.

Dr.

Beaumont steps outside and begins walking briskly up the street.

His heart is pounding from the excitement.

He feels invigorated in a way he hasn't in a long time.

Because today, he's not just some Army medic.

He's he's breaking new ground.

And the man lying on that cot might be just the thing Beaumont needs to get off this island.

It's the spring of 1823, and Alexis Saint Martin is on his feet.

preparing tea in the kitchen of Dr.

Beaumont's house.

He winces slightly slightly as he reaches for a cup in a high cupboard.

Even now, almost a year after the shotgun incident, the wound in his abdomen hasn't completely healed.

This is because back in June, when Alexis came to after the accident, he'd refused to let Dr.

Beaumont properly close up the hole with painful sutures.

Exhausted by the surgery he'd already been through, Alexis had opted to let it heal naturally.

but the wound turned out to be too large for that.

Now Alexis finds himself in a truly bizarre situation.

He's living with an open cavity in his torso.

The outside of this hole is covered with a skin flap, like a lid.

This means that anytime Dr.

Beaumont wants to take a glance at Alexis' lungs and intestines, all the doctor has to do is lift the skin flap, hold a candle up for light, and look inside.

Alexis's body now literally provides a glimpse into the inner workings of the human gastrointestinal system.

For a physician like Dr.

Beaumont, it's clearly been an incredible learning opportunity.

For Alexis, there are certain benefits as well.

For one, he's received a remarkable amount of attention from Dr.

Beaumont these past months.

Immediately after the accident, Alexis was bedridden and unable to return to his job as a voyager.

He might have ended up destitute on the streets had it not been for Dr.

Beaumont, who allowed the young man to live and recover under his roof.

Now Alexis has recovered to the point where he feels well enough to do some light chores around the doctor's home, cooking, cleaning, and so on.

He figures that's the least he can do.

He owes his life to the doctor.

After all, who's ever heard of someone taking a shotgun blast to the gut and living to tell the tale?

Alexis casts a glance at the clock on the wall.

It's time for his checkup with the doctor, so he pours the tea and takes up the saucer.

As he turns to leave the kitchen, he allows himself a quick glance out the window.

There, through the buildings and trees, he can see a sliver of water.

Lake Huron is out there, extending off into the horizon, beckoning him to return to his life in the great outdoors.

But as soon as he begins to feel that urge, Alexis tears himself away and carries the tea down a hallway.

He knows he should be grateful that everything turned out the way it did.

It's a very nice house after all, and the doctor keeps him nourished with a liquid diet designed specifically for his recovery.

It's clear that Dr.

Beaumont is extremely invested in Alexis' case and is going above and beyond for him.

But despite all that, Alexis feels trapped.

Life as a housekeeper doesn't suit him, but to leave this house would mean leaving the only safety net Alexis has ever had.

The reality is, Alexis has no education and no prospects.

He's a laborer who's too disabled to perform physical labor.

And now, the very thing that drew him to the frontier, the idea that a man out here is completely on his own and has to be entirely self-sufficient, has imprisoned him.

When Alexis reaches the door of Dr.

Beaumont's private office, he knocks, enters with the tea, and sets it on the desk where the doctor sits, immersed in his work.

By now, both Alexis and the doctor know the drill.

Alexis goes to the wooden chair in the corner, sits, and removes his shirt.

His torso is wrapped in bandages, which Dr.

Beaumont begins cutting away.

There's a window in the office, but Alexis doesn't turn his head to look out at this time.

Maybe someday he'll be healthy enough to leave this house, but but for now, he must accept that his role is to be a walking, breathing science experiment.

A human lab rat.

Dr.

Beaumont isn't thinking about Alexis' dreams as he cuts the soiled linens away, peeling them off layer by layer.

He's laser-focused on the hole under the bandages.

It's smaller now, small enough that Beaumont theorizes Alexis might be able to eat without food falling out of it.

For months, Alexis had been on a liquid diet, unable to eat solid foods because they'd literally fall out of his stomach.

But now, seeing how small the hole has become, Dr.

Beaumont tells his patient that it might be worth experimenting with small meals to see if he can hold anything down.

Alexis seems relieved to hear it and smiles.

Dr.

Beaumont smiles too.

The doctor has never seen anything like Alexis' torso hole before.

As far as he knows, Alexis is the first patient in all of recorded human history to survive with a fully exposed stomach, which means that Dr.

Beaumont is witnessing something that perhaps no one else has ever seen before.

In the 1820s, biologists and scientists have a very general understanding that people gain energy from their food, but there's still a mystery around how the process works.

Some people think the human digestive system is basically like a combustion engine.

Bread, meat, and vegetables go in, the stomach heats up like a fiery forge, and everything burns up while generating power for the body.

Others believe that something almost supernatural is at play, that people eat and live because God wills it so, and there's nothing more to it than that.

The doctors who stand by this theory say there's no point in studying the stomach's anatomy or functions because we'll never truly grasp them anyway.

By extension, that suggests there's no reason to do any kind of medical research.

If a patient gets sick or dies, well, that's fate.

Might as well resign ourselves to how things were meant to be.

This school of thought is called vitalism, and it dates back to Aristotle's time.

It's the ancient philosophical framework that Beaumont would have been exposed to if he'd had a more traditional education.

But Beaumont doesn't believe in vitalism.

He believes in what he can see and what he can touch.

He redresses Alexis's wound and sends him away without bothering to make any conversation.

Dr.

Beaumont is deep in thought, and he doesn't wonder what Alexis makes of all this.

Not long afterwards, in 1824, Dr.

Beaumont learns of an incredible discovery by a British researcher named Dr.

William Prout.

Prout was performing autopsies on dead animals when he discovered that their stomachs were full of corrosive acid.

Prout proposes that perhaps people and animals alike break down their food through a chemical process.

That food dissolves in stomach acid and then it's somehow converted into energy.

His theory is controversial.

Many doctors think an acid that's strong enough to break down food would also burn a hole in people's stomachs.

But Prout's findings are solid and his research methods are sound, so his discovery is hard to debunk.

If he's right though, it means digestion isn't combustion or supernatural, it's chemistry.

In turn, that could mean there is a place for evidence-based research and medicine.

It is possible for physicians to diagnose, treat, and cure stomach ailments.

They just need to start with a foundation based on research and science, not speculation.

And Alexis St.

Martin's unique injury could provide that foundation.

The hole in his stomach means that Prout's theory can be tested.

Dr.

Beaumont has a chance to observe the digestive process firsthand.

He can learn exactly what happens to the food we eat.

It's noon on August 1st, 1825.

A year after Dr.

William Prout first theorized that the stomach is filled with acid.

Beaumont works at his new desk in his new study in Fort Niagara, New York.

The doctor has been restationed here, and his patient, Alexis, has made the journey with him.

No longer stationed on Mackinac Island, Dr.

Beaumont is finally doing what he's always dreamed of, performing real, important medical research.

By this time, he's already completed a lengthy series of tests on Alexis, the results of which he hopes to publish soon.

But today, He has something new in store for his young patient.

Today, when Alexis enters with the doctor's tea and begins removing his shirt as usual, Dr.

Beaumont produces a tray, one he's prepared in advance.

It holds a length of silk string tied around several pieces of food, raw pork fat, raw beef, stale bread, cooked beef, and raw cabbage.

Beaumont sees Alexis wince as he notices the tray.

The doctor can hardly blame him.

After all, the first series of tests were rather uncomfortable and required him to do things such as fasting for 17-hour periods.

But Beaumont knows that such minor sufferings are worth it for the greater good.

He reassures his patient that he just has one more test and it won't hurt too much.

Trusting his doctor, Alexis lies down and waits quietly while Beaumont pushes the flap over his wound aside.

Then he slides each morsel into Alexis' stomach through the open hole.

A few times, Alexis whimpers.

but Beaumont doesn't stop.

He places each piece of food in the stomach, but leaves the end of the silk string dangling outside the hole.

It's like a fishing line, something he can tug to easily remove the samples from Alexis' stomach whenever he needs.

Every hour on the hour, he pulls the food out by the string and studies it to see if it's broken down inside the stomach.

After he weighs and measures each morsel, he opens the skin flap and puts it back into Alexis' stomach.

But by 2 p.m., just two hours into the study, Alexis begs him to end the experiment.

He says he's in horrible horrible pain.

Beaumont wants to ignore his pleas.

The work is more important than Alexis' temporary discomfort.

But Alexis isn't just complaining, he's writhing, which Beaumont knows could affect the results of the experiment.

In a fit of frustration, Beaumont yanks the food from Alexis' stomach by the string.

Alexis lets out a tortured cry, but Dr.

Beaumont is already thinking ahead to how he'll get the information he needs.

He figures he can resume the study later when Alexis is feeling more up to it.

Except the next day, Alexis is seriously ill.

He complains that his gut is wrenched with pain and his head won't stop pounding.

When the doctor examines him, he also notes that there are sores forming on his stomach and his pulse is slower than usual.

Beaumont doesn't know what exactly is wrong with him.

That's one of the reasons this study is so important, so he can learn more about how the stomach interacts with the rest of the body and how to keep people healthy.

Although he doesn't know exactly how to treat the ailment, Beaumont drops a half-dozen calomel pills, which contains mercurous chloride, into Alexis' stomach and lets the young man rest for a few days.

Luckily, Alexis recovers, but Beaumont is frustrated by the delay.

While he waits, he finds less invasive ways to study Alexis' digestion.

He withdraws the fluid from his patient's stomach and puts it in several jars.

Then, he puts bits of food into each jar.

Some bread in one, boiled eggs in another, then raw beef, cooked beef, various vegetables, and on it goes.

Beaumont notes that the liquid looks and smells different, depending on whether he extracts it before or after Alexis has eaten.

And its color and consistency also varies with what he's eaten.

Sometimes it's thick and brown, while other times it's thin and white.

At least once, he withdraws the liquid and sees that it's a sick yellow-green color.

He notes all these variations in which foods go into which jar.

Each time he checks on the samples, he weighs them, measures them, and keeps detailed records on whether they've broken down and by exactly how much.

And what Beaumont is doing, this scientific approach of methodically testing and retesting and keeping detailed records of his measurements, is practically unheard of at this time.

Medical research of this era, as much as such a thing even exists, is anecdotal.

If one physician notices their patient responds well to a certain treatment, there is essentially no coordination with other physicians or researchers to help test or hone the remedy with other patients.

Occasionally, someone might stumble onto a new cure or treatment by accident.

But clinical trials, as we understand them, are a very new idea and one that hasn't taken hold yet in the scientific establishment.

Only mavericks like Dr.

Beaumont are willing to conduct the same experiment over and over to see if their results can be repeated.

Still, he's confident that all this work will pay off.

Later that month, while the study is still ongoing, Beaumont is enjoying a rich dinner of roasted beef, carrots, and potatoes when Alexis walks into the dining room.

It's obvious to Beaumont that the young man is agitated.

He asks what's bothering him, and Alexis drops a bombshell.

He says he wants to end the experiments.

For years, his life has been one of constant research, measurement, and a strictly controlled diet.

The experiments are essentially torture.

They're painful.

They make him sick on a regular basis.

And Dr.

Beaumont doesn't seem to care.

He stayed in the doctor's house this long because he's afraid of what might happen to him on the outside, but he's been pushed too far and for too long.

What awaits him out there can't possibly be worse than this miserable life he's fallen into, and he wants out.

It's not worth it anymore.

Beaumont listens, but he doesn't feel sorry for Alexis.

He feels furious.

To his mind, it's ridiculous to imagine that a research subject would expect to have a say in his studies.

At this time, there's no such thing as patient consent.

In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Medical research is so rare that there are essentially no guidelines on how to do it.

Certainly no ethical considerations.

The doctors who are renegade enough to perform real experiments don't think about who gets hurt.

All that matters to them is their pursuit of knowledge.

A little more than 50 years ago, for example, in 1768, a Jamaican doctor named John Chuire noticed that smallpox survivors rarely got the disease a second time.

So he began deliberately infecting people to trigger mild cases and build immunity, an early form of vaccination, though viruses weren't yet understood.

It was a medical breakthrough, but it was achieved by experimenting on enslaved people without their consent, including the elderly, pregnant women, and infants.

Some of Choir's subjects died from full-blown smallpox.

Around the same time that Choir was making his discovery, a surgeon in the Royal Navy named James Lind carried out what is considered the first controlled clinical trial of the modern era.

By feeding different diets to sailors aboard a ship, which gave some of them scurvy, Lind determined that scurvy could be treated with citrus.

But his patients had no idea they were being studied in the first place.

They just got sick.

But at this time, nobody is thinking about the babies with smallpox or the sailors with scurvy.

The only thing that matters is the vaccine and the cure that came out of their suffering.

Beaumont believes that scientific discovery is more important than any one person.

How could Alexis be so selfish, so small-minded?

Beaumont pretends to listen.

He pretends to understand Alexis' frustration.

But the truth is, his mind has been made up since the very moment Alexis began to speak.

He waits for Alexis to finish and then sets his knife and fork down on the table.

No, he says simply, the research will continue.

But what Beaumont leaves unsaid is that he has no intention of ever ending the research, and Alexis is to remain his lab rat for the rest of his life.

It's early 1931 now, almost six years after Dr.

Beaumont first refused to stop experiments on Alexis.

Since then, Beaumont has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep Alexis under his control, including hiring men to track his patient down after Alexis successfully escaped back to his native Canada in 1825.

These men applied just the right amount of pressure, and now Alexis is back in the States, where Beaumont has carried out more than 50 different experiments on his unhappy patient.

Today, Beaumont checks on the jars of stomach acid he's collected.

He cracks one open, grimacing at the acrid odor that wafts outward.

He holds the container up to the light, swirling it.

Stringy, soggy particles of what was once carrot are visible in the milky white liquid.

Pleased by what he sees, he jots the result down on a notepad.

By now, Beaumont understands that the carrot is gone because it's been dissolved, or, more accurately, it's been digested.

For years, Beaumont has known Dr.

William Prout's theory to be true, that the stomach is full of a corrosive acid that breaks down food.

The jar in his hand shows that the body doesn't break down food by burning it with heat, like most people believe, and it has nothing to do with divine intervention.

Digestion is a chemical process.

and this has enormous implications.

It means that the medical problems in the stomach can be solved with chemistry chemistry too.

But proving Prout's theory hasn't stopped Beaumont's appetite for scientific research.

With Alexis back under his control, the doctor has continued studying how digestion is affected under specific conditions.

He has methodically introduced variables into his experiments, like different temperatures, different humidity levels, and different food combinations.

The goal is to fully map out the digestive process, actually explain how it works step by step for the first time ever.

Beaumont gives the jar one more swirl.

As he stares into the jar's milky white liquid, he sees a whole new world of medical science opening up to him.

He is holding in his hand the key to dietary science, to biological science as a whole.

His breakthrough will change the way everyone understands the workings of the human body.

Within a few years, Beaumont's book, Experiments and Observations of the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion, is being taught in almost every medical school in the country.

Doctors buy multiple copies so they can share them with their colleagues.

Until his death, Beaumont is considered the most accomplished doctor in all of America.

His research is a foundation that other scientists will build on for the next two centuries.

All of this was only possible thanks to the unthinkable sacrifices by Alexis Saint-Martin, an unwilling research subject whose disability Beaumont exploited to trap him into a life of near constant pain.

Alexis did run away from Beaumont several times, but Beaumont always found him and manipulated him into coming back.

When Alexis eventually dies, many researchers express interest in performing an autopsy, even planning to keep his stomach in the Army Medical Museum.

But Alexis's surviving family says no to all of it.

They are so opposed to the idea of him becoming a science experiment again that they let let his body sit at home and decompose to the point it becomes virtually unusable to anyone.

Then they bury Alexis eight feet underground to deter anyone from digging him back up.

Finally, in death, Alexis St.

Martin's wishes are respected.

Today, medical researchers are held to a strict code of ethics and patients must give informed consent before an experiment.

But they're still able to build on Dr.

Beaumont's discoveries, even if they were made in the course of a deeply unethical and cruel study.

Because once physicians understand that digestion is a chemical process, a process that can be explained through research, they begin to ask themselves, what else can be understood through meticulous clinical testing?

Shortly after Beaumont announces his discovery, other researchers discover viruses, bacteria, infections, and other microorganisms that make us sick.

When it comes to the field of digestion, researchers can explore other questions, like how our bodies break down specific kinds of foods and why we're able to consume so many different things.

Soon, scientists discover the existence of vitamins, minerals, fats, carbs, and proteins.

This, in turn, makes it possible to diagnose people with nutrient deficiencies and to help dieters optimize their meal plans.

But it was the broader idea of clinical studies, the belief that Beaumont and a handful of other renegades shared, that medicine can and should be approached scientifically, that truly changed the world and ushered in a new era of modern medicine.

So, if you've ever skimmed the nutrition label in your favorite snack, or taken a pill approved by the FDA, or even had a loved one receive an organ transplant, you owe a debt of gratitude to Dr.

William Beaumont and his often unwilling patient, Alexis St.

Martin.

His suffering gave science a window into the human body, and we're still reaping the rewards today.

From Balin Studios, this is a twist of history.

A quick note about our stories.

They're all heavily researched, but some details and scenes are dramatized.

A Twist of History is hosted by me, Joel Blackwell.

Executive produced by Mr.

Balin and Zach Levitt.

Our head of writing is Evan Allen.

Produced by Perry Kroll.

This episode was written by Angela Jorgensen.

Story editing by Luke Baratz and Aaron Lamb.

Edited by Alistair Sherman.

And audio mixing by Colin Lester Fleming.

Post-production supervision by Jeremy Bohm and Cole Lacasio.

Research and fact-checking by Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Evan Beamer, Alex Paul, Patricia Nicole Florentino, Calvin Riley-Holgate, Matt Gilligan.

Production coordination by Samantha Collins and Avery Siegel.

Artwork by Jessica Klogston-Kiner and Robin Vane.

Thank you for listening to A Twist of History.