This collection is made up of correspondence and newspaper clippings by or related to Alexis St. Martin, a French-Canadian man who underwent medical experimentation and observation after surviving an open stomach wound.
Eight letters and postcards, July-September 1879, pertain to James H. Etheridge's proposals to Alexis St. Martin, requesting that he visit Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois, for observation. Alexis St. Martin (3 items) and Henry F. Harris (4 items) wrote about St. Martin's possible involvement and financial compensation. Two newspaper clippings, written before 1880, concern St. Martin's wound, his later life, and Dr. William Beaumont's experiments on St. Martin's stomach. See the Detailed Box and Folder Listing for information about each individual item.
Alexis St. Martin received an accidental gunshot wound in his stomach on June 6, 1822, while he was employed at Fort Mackinac by the American Fur Company. Dr. William Beaumont (1785-1853), a United States Army surgeon, treated the wound, and temporarily cared for St. Martin in his home. The hole in St. Martin's stomach never closed completely, which allowed Dr. Beaumont to perform experiments and make observations about digestion and other processes of the stomach. The results of his research were published as Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion (Plattsburgh, 1833).
Alexis St. Martin fathered 17 children and later lived in Oakdale, Massachusetts, and St. Thomas, Québec. He died in Canada in 1880.
