Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: The Gut Hole Romance

Episode Date: May 13, 2015

This week on Sawbones, Justin and Sydnee share medical history's greatest will-they/won't-they, the story of a doctor and his muse: A man with a hole in his stomach. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayer...s

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Saabones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.
Starting point is 00:00:56 Some medicines, some medicines, the escalant macabre for the mouth. Hello and welcome to Saul Bowen's, Meryl Tur of Miscited Medicine. I am your co-host Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. Sydney, I don't want to do the podcast Why? I'm hungry Sydney. Okay. I'm hungry Um, why didn't you eat something before? It's 9 30 is too early to eat for me. I got it. I got a weight to late Justin so I'm feeling great 30 is too early to eat for me. I got to wait till late. Justin. So I'm feeling great. Justin doesn't eat any of his meals at appropriate times.
Starting point is 00:01:28 No. It's like some meal that is cereal that eats at what like 1130. Mm. At night? A.M. A.M. Yeah, that's like a brunch cereal. That's it though.
Starting point is 00:01:38 That's not a, no, that's not brunch. That's not breakfast. That's not lunch. That's not brunch. That's not anything. It's not about meals, Sydney. That's just a bad job. Sydney, it's not about meals. That's just a bad job. It's not about meals, it's about energy. Food energy.
Starting point is 00:01:48 You see, let me tell you how food works. Oh, you're gonna, okay. When I wake up, when I wake up, that's just wake up energy, okay? So I just have regular energy. Right. And then after that, I drink coffee. So then I have, I'm fueled by by coffee energy and that gets me to about 11.
Starting point is 00:02:07 Halfine, but okay. 11.30, 11.11.30. Okay. And then I need like breakfast energy, like cereal energy to get me up the hill. So you eat the cereal and then it turns into food energy and you use that to like really rev your motor and get your all your work done for the day. So see, okay. So the cereal turns into food energy. That's the way food, yes, basically.
Starting point is 00:02:26 How does that happen? What is your concept of? Well, okay. You eat the food, and as you chew the food, you're releasing the bonds. You must have, sound effects. Just like that, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, because I'm patting my hands.
Starting point is 00:02:41 Okay. And then as you chew the food, you release the energy stored in the Covalent bonds, ionic elemental bonds, and then the... You name some bonds there, that's good. Nucleus of the energy of the food and energy is released into your system.
Starting point is 00:02:58 And it all lands in your stomach, and there it is, digested into electricity, basically, that goes to different parts of your body and powers your muscles to control your bones. Okay, so that is how food works. That's how food works. It's not.
Starting point is 00:03:14 Okay. No, you're wrong. Agreed to disagree. If anyone is listening who doesn't know how food works, food works, that's wrong. Listen to how words work. It's not how plurals work. It's smart elk. Okay, well, you practice in your realm over there
Starting point is 00:03:27 of words and I'll stick with science, okay? So no, that's not actually how digestion or food energy, food energy works. But you know, you were not the first person to not know how digestion works. I would hope not. I don't think Charlie knows. Well, fair, but I think, you know what, even if she could speak and she could explain it, I think she'd do a better job than you just did.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Right, I know. It took us quite a while to figure out how digestion works. And there's one person in particular who did some pretty interesting and gruesome things to figure this out that I think you'd be interested in hearing about. So why don't I tell you about Dr. William Beaumont and Mr. Alexis St. Martin? Okay, sounds good. Okay.
Starting point is 00:04:13 First of all, before I tell you why I'm gonna tell you about these two guys, I wanna thank some people, Hannah, who did, what you liked referred to as the McRoy bump, she suggested this topic a while ago, and then we hadn't done it. So she suggested it again, so it would be fresh in my inbox. But there's some other people who suggested it, Dale Robert, Brendan Grant. Thank you guys.
Starting point is 00:04:32 This is a great topic, and I just, and you're going to be so grossed out. You're going to love it. I can't. Oh, I haven't eaten that. Why I guess it's better. No, that is... Trust me, that is better. We're not going to advertise any food today, right?
Starting point is 00:04:43 No, no food sponsors. Good. Thank goodness. They'd hate us. So prior to the 1800s, doctors really didn't understand much like Justin. Didn't understand the process of digestion. Very well. So much like a doctor in the 1800s. I can look at that. You know what? Yes. I think your medical knowledge is about equal to a doctor prior to the 1800s. Okay. There were two, there were two big camps of people in the medical community. And when I say medical community, let's be fair. We're still talking about people who are like,
Starting point is 00:05:13 hey, I'm a doctor, I cut somebody's leg off once behind the barn. Yee-ha. He didn't want me to, but I did it. Right. Psychopaths. Yeah, I mean, there were some people who had actually tried to train, but there were a lot of people who were just like, my first name is to actor. So I think
Starting point is 00:05:28 that counts. In the two camps, so the two camps on digestion one believes that digestion is a mechanical thing. So basically you chew the food, it goes down into your, into your stomach and then your stomach just kind of mushes it around until it digests and then your intestines probably help finish the process. You know what I mean? So it's all mechanical. Foods tossed around mushed up and... Well, that's not right because I know stomach acids are thing. Well, there you go.
Starting point is 00:05:56 And that was the other camp. They thought that there was something inside the stomach, some kind of fluid. There were some people who thought acid was part of the process that actually broke the food down into different parts and then you digested it that way. But nobody really understood the process. Now, Dr. Beaumont is credited with figuring this out with a lot of assistance from somebody who I would consider a very unfortunate participant in history, Mr. Alexis St. Martin. So let me tell you about who these two guys are.
Starting point is 00:06:27 First of all, Dr. Beaumont is born in Connecticut in 1785. And I say, Dr, this is crazy, the amount of training or the lack of training he had to become a doctor. So back then, if you wanted to be a physician, you could just what they call read under someone. Meaning? So you would find a doctor who could just what they call read under someone. Meaning? So you would find a doctor who was willing
Starting point is 00:06:47 to let you read under them, meaning that they would, you would find books that said stuff about medicine. I don't know if it's right or not, because it's 1809 when we're talking about this. And then you would read them, and you could, I guess like, I don't know, have book club with them,
Starting point is 00:07:02 like you could tell them like, what book should I read next, doctor, and he would tell you, and then you'd tell them that you read it, and I don't know, have book club with them. Like, you could tell them, like, what book should I read next? Doctor and he would tell you and then you'd tell him that you read it. And I don't know, he might quiz you maybe. Perfect. I love it. Um, but that was kind of what you would do. At first, you would read under them. And then eventually, once you saved up enough money, you would pay them to do an apprenticeship with them. Okay.
Starting point is 00:07:20 So he read under a doctor. So it's like Oprah. The entire nation has been reading under Oprah. Yes. She's just telling us what books to read and then eventually we'll get an Oprah apprenticeship. Who's gonna get the Oprah apprenticeship? Me. Congratulate me. Congratulation. Hey, do we get a car? You get a car. I get a car. There's so many people in the room. So it's only two cars. It's not that extravagant. That's not as exciting. Yeah. There's like two people in the room. So it's only two cars. It's not that extra African. That's not as exciting. Yeah. So he so he read under a doctor starting in 1809 and then in 1811 he was able to buy an apprenticeship with that doctor and
Starting point is 00:07:52 by 1812 he was a doctor. There you go. So we're it only that simple now. He did but he did have a lot of on the job training I will say because he worked as an army surgeon or as a surgeon's, because he worked as an army surgeon, or as a surgeon's mate initially, and then as an army surgeon in the War of 1812. I like this guy's real ladder climber. He also then later up into private practice, where he would see patients, and after the experiments we're going to talk about, he had a huge private practice because he was pretty famous.
Starting point is 00:08:21 Where we're going to start our journey with him is on Mac and Mac Island in 1822. This is where we meet Alexis St. Martin. Alexis St. Martin is not a doctor. He is a voyager. Ooh. Not a cool name. That's a cool title of voyager. So he worked with the American fur company. He was a fur trader. So he would paddle around in a canoe and I don't know kill things and get the fur and then take it back and be for belts and yeah, yeah, sell it for money. And he worked on Mac and act Island, like Huron. He was a French Canadian. And we're talking about as we talk about these two men, these are really two different classes of society. Like Dr. Beaumont was by the time they met was an officer in the army. And
Starting point is 00:09:07 Alexis St. Martin was part of the fur traders who were seen as kind of like a rough class. Like they gambled and they drank and they partied and they spent all the money they made trading fur on loose women and cool drinks and hot music. I don't Whatever, whatever cool people do. Yeah, what do people do? Oh, you have no idea. These two men probably would never have come into contact is what I'm saying. Okay. Usually. Except for in June of 1822, when poor Alexis was accidentally shot in the stomach with a shotgun. When it, and it sounds like from all accounts, it wasn't accident. It went off about three feet away from him. So he's shot in the stomach.
Starting point is 00:09:50 Dr. Beaumont is nearby, and it's one of the physicians in an officer. He runs to the rescue to save this poor guy. He's got a hole in his side about the size of the palm of your hand. This shotgun blast is damaged not just his stomach, but his left-long is damaged, two ribs are damaged, and they can see a big gaping hole in his actual stomach. They know it's an stomach because his breakfast immediately spilled from the wound.
Starting point is 00:10:19 There's the first piece of the puzzle right there. Food is in your tummy. There, you're welcome doctors. So we're already learning. Already making progress. Alexis isn't learning. Alexis is clinging to life. And Dr. Beaumont comes to try to treat him and rescue him, knowing that at the time, this is likely a fatal wound. Right.
Starting point is 00:10:41 I mean, that's what we're thinking, because we didn't really understand infection very well as in like what caused it, but we knew that usually we couldn't stop it and people died. So Dr. Beaumont though he he is intrepid he does his best and he he actually uses his pin knife to kind of pick out the pieces of broken rib and then push the lung back where it goes. Cool. Cool. He cleans the wound up and he puts a poultice of some sort on it as you would do. Probably just like dirt and fox hair, wishes.
Starting point is 00:11:14 That's some kind of animal poop. You know there's animals in there. There's cats. Always animal poop. And then he waits. And for the next six months, it's kind of touch and go whether or not Alexis is going to survive.
Starting point is 00:11:27 He gets pneumonia, the wound becomes infected. None of this is surprising considering the... He's hungry. He's really hungry. He's really hungry. Dr. Beaumont does his best to tend to him. Using the treatments of the time, he bleeds him periodically. You know, why not?
Starting point is 00:11:46 Yeah. He's got a big hole in his stomach, why not cut open a vein and bleed him a little bit? He cleans the wound as often as he can. He tries at one point, and this was another common treatment at the time, when somebody sick with something you don't know what to do, give them something that'll make him puke.
Starting point is 00:12:01 You know, get the bad stuff out. Sure, apocac, something like that. Exactly. So it gives him a cathocac, something like that. Exactly. So it gives him a cathartic, meaning something that would make him puke. And you can imagine what happened in that situation. I can't and I won't. Well, do you want me to describe it to you?
Starting point is 00:12:15 Yeah, a great detail. So I mean, he, instead of throwing up because he's got this big hole in his stomach, everything just kind of comes pouring out. Great. Like the hole in his stomach of comes pouring out. Great. Like the whole and his stomach. Excellent. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:28 Excellent. This actually for a while they feed him through what they record as anal injection for a while to keep him nourished. So. I wish I'm wondering like I don't even know what tools or what. How about a turkey baster? We didn't have like insure. I don't even know.
Starting point is 00:12:43 You think a turkey baster? What were they doing? They they, just purine? They were good. Puree turkey. It's all turkey-based system. Maybe some cranberries around the holidays. Just a nice, nice butt lunch. Please don't ever say but lunch again. Oh my gosh.
Starting point is 00:13:07 I agree you good, but lunch. I guess it's a festive but lunch. If you got to have a but lunch, you want it to be festive. Yeah, if you're going to town, go on a Lincoln. If you're having but lunch, yeah, some ground up turkey and cranberries. Now, it's remarkable considering all this that Alexa's not only survives, he starts improving. He's doing better. Is he doing better, though, Sydney?
Starting point is 00:13:30 Is he doing better? Well, I bet he's alive. He's breathing, his heart's beating. He's not riddled with infection by December. Okay. So, I mean, this is a long time. June to December, he's struggling. He's sick.
Starting point is 00:13:43 By December, they can actually just put a bandage over the wound, really tight bandage, and then he can eat, and food doesn't come spelling out of a stomach. Wonderful, that's good, right? That's good, you know what, I mean, it's better. I think better than anal injection, better than butt lunch.
Starting point is 00:14:00 Better than butt lunch. This is, see, it's too bad we're not doing any. Come to TGI Fridays, this week for mozzarella slammers. We guarantee they're better than but lunch. Is that, I think, I fear he uses that. Come down, come down, come down to Johnny's Salsa this weekend. For our case, the Dia Dauer is wrapped in bacon and slammed in nacho cheese and it's better than butt lunch. Um, as, as, so now that the wound is, is better, Beaumont starts trying to close it, you know, because he, he's been too sick for him to really go through the surgery to try to, you know, so up this hole. So he starts trying to close up the wound and he tries this several different times
Starting point is 00:14:45 and he just can't get it to close. It won't stay close, he can't get the edges to approximate meaning like come together and stay sealed. So now there's a much smaller hole in this man's side, but it's still very much present, which I guess at that point, if you've got a hole in you, you don't really care how big it is. So like a problem. And what Dr. Beaumont notices is it's, and you kind of have to envision this. So it's healed up around the edges. It's like a tunnel that's solid all the way through. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:15:14 So it's like all healed up on the sides. So stuff's not gonna come out of the stomach and just spill into the abdominal cavity. It goes out of the body and then back into the stomach. It's like a one way street there. So this is called a gastric fistula. Oh, okay. And that is what he has developed. Did they have to invent a name for it? No, they were actually... They were actually... There were actually throughout history, there have been other people who have survived with gastric fistulas, even prior to Alexis Saint Martin.
Starting point is 00:15:39 But what's notable is that most of them didn't use it to, I guess, the betterment of mankind as Alexis will do here soon. Spoiler alert. Now, at this point, because, you know, he's pretty much stable, he's got this hole in this stomach, he's got to cover it so that food doesn't come out when he eats, but he could go back to his life. However, he doesn't think, you know, what that whole rough existence as a fur trader
Starting point is 00:16:07 is probably gonna be pretty tough on somebody with a hole in their gut. And Beaumont agrees with him. That's probably not a good idea. And not only that, he sees an opportunity here. So they can look at his gut, Gully works? Exactly. So, you know, everybody's been debating about digestion and now all of a sudden,
Starting point is 00:16:24 we have this opportunity to study it really up close and personal. So, he hires Alexis to keep him around. He first hires him in 1823 to be his handyman. So, which I think is kind of interesting because like you can't be a fur trader because that's too hard, but just chop some wood for me and mo, my lawn or whatever do some chores. It takes them a while of persuading a year or so but eventually Beaumont talks him into letting him do some experiments on this hole in his stomach. Oh no. Okay. What kind? Well I'm gonna give you a brief respite before I tell you about the experiments. Why don't you come down with me to the billing department?
Starting point is 00:17:09 Oh, thank God. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that I skilled at my God before the mount. Okay, said, tell me about these stomach experiments. He said not really wanting the answer to his question. So Dr. Beaumont has this guy, Alexa St. Marnie's got a hole in his stomach and he thinks, what can I put in there? So he starts by tying pieces of meat to a string and then just kind of dangling them into
Starting point is 00:17:39 the hole in his stomach. And he tries different kinds of meat, like he starts off and he's like here's some salted I get a gator Trying to catch yourself a gator a tummy gator That's how your food is broken down. How your food is breaking down tummy gators We solved it. What if he did reached down some food on a string and he just pulled up a little tummy gator Like how stoked would he be like hey guys hey guys, hey, hi, hello. It's Dr. Beaumont.
Starting point is 00:18:08 We were very wrong. We were almost inculculably wrong. But it is much cooler than we ever thought. Do you know how sometimes when you throw up really hard, a little alligator comes out? Well, good news. I have cracked that case as well. See, they teach you that in med school, but you've got to get to like the
Starting point is 00:18:26 higher levels of med school. Yeah, they get a pay extra before they tell you that. It's like Scientology. You're going to OT3 before they'll tell you that you're telling these full of the leaders. That's when you get so far out of the tell you that you go, Oh, no, no, no, bad med school. I have gone astray. Okay, so what was he dangling? So he tried some salted lean beef, some salted fat pork. And then he started trying raw beef. Ooh.
Starting point is 00:18:53 To his dangling, just raw pieces of beef in this poor guy's stomach. He did try things that weren't meat, occasionally. Stale bread, raw cabbage. He would dangle it in there and then take it out at like one hour, two hours, three hours To see what it looked like basically. Okay. To see, you know, how did it did it break down if it wasn't being moved You know, what was happening?
Starting point is 00:19:15 He would also like take the temperature of his stomach so he would have him fast and then check the temperature Which was 100 degrees in case you're interested and then then he would take some of the juices from his stomach, like stick a spoon in there, and take some gastric juices out. Some tummy juices. Yeah, put them in a test tube, make sure they stayed at 100 degrees, and then put food in that, and see, like, does that digest food
Starting point is 00:19:37 just as easily if I put it in a test tube, and then we'll try them at different temperatures, and basically just see what happens. Like what is it in this stomach that's digesting the food? As you can imagine, these experiments left Alexis feeling terrible. Yes, pretty bad.
Starting point is 00:19:57 Yeah, thanks for dangling raw pork in my tummy. I'm gonna go. It's funny, they know that he had indigestion afterwards, which I think sounds like a, like an understatement. Yeah, right. Indigestion. Got off easy. Um, so it after only about a month or so, Alexis takes off back to Canada and he's like, I'm sorry, dude, you know, I, I appreciate that you saved my life. I appreciate that you tried to give me a job, but I just think the price is too steep here. This is not fulfilling a rewarding work.
Starting point is 00:20:28 I feel like crap. So I'm going back to Canada where he got married and had kids. Great. And they had holes in there, so I'm used to. No. Does he pass it on? No, that's not how that works.
Starting point is 00:20:40 That's how that works. He must have been a really charming guy. Oh boy, you know how smooth a talker you have to be that there's one of the things that I meant to tell you. I put food in a hole in my belly. That's right. That's where I put food. Well now imagine a first date's dinner.
Starting point is 00:21:02 What if your first date is dinner? Another bread stick? Another bread stick? Oh, are really shouldn't on zip shirt I don't think he he fed himself that I bed at parties. He did you don't know guys very well He was kind of a heavy drinker, so yeah, uh, yes, Sydney. Hi. I'd like you to meet Every dude ever would definitely definitely do that at every opportunity Especially when drunk are you kidding me? Well, but maybe he had to drink so much because it kept coming back out right like a like that
Starting point is 00:21:36 That old joke skeleton walks into a bar and he says bartender. I need a beer and a mop That's a good joke. Thank you. He's really good. So, okay, so Alexis leaves, but Vomont's not done with him. He wants to understand digestion better. He didn't feel like he got enough. He didn't feel like he crammed enough.
Starting point is 00:21:57 We're all beef into his stomach, I guess. So over the next 10 years, he keeps trying to get Alexis to come back and spend more time with them and do more experiments and he occasionally succeeds. They would meet on and off. The whole time Beaumont's traveling around to different places with the army. He's writing letters to Alexis and please come back to me. I will pay you, I will bring your family with you and pay them to Please I really want to do some more experiments on your stomach at one point Beaumont even arranges to have him enlisted in the army So he could travel with him and like his job is just to follow him around and let Beaumont stick stuff in his stomach When they did come when him and his family would come and stay with him for periods of time Beaumont would pay them all like hired hands essentially.
Starting point is 00:22:46 Okay. And it's a really odd relationship because like by all accounts, Alexis St. Martin didn't speak English very well. He was a French Canadian. So he's mainly spoke French and Beaumont did not speak French that we know of. So they probably didn't communicate very well. They're from very different classes at the time. And if you read their letters, they kind of hated each other. Really?
Starting point is 00:23:08 Yeah. Beaumont thought Alexis St. Martin, he calls him a villain. He thought he was like a drunk and a, you know, just kind of worthless except for what he could, you know, teach us basically. His tummy trick. Yeah, except for the whole in his stomach. And Alexis kind of thought Beaumont was a jerk and kind of elitist, but he fell down allegiance to him because he saved his life. So he would go back periodically.
Starting point is 00:23:33 At one point in 1829, Beaumont paid the whole family to come to Fort Crawford. He started observing Alexis's stomach under different weather conditions. He went into rainy, how fast you you digest when it's really hot outside. What does raw beef do at that point? At some point this really ticked Alexis off and he even like notes this in his experiments like when the subject's really angry, his digestion is slowed down.
Starting point is 00:23:58 So like you can note the effect of, you know, taking him off on your cabbage. Uh. Um, he compared like stomach juices to water. That was a big thing he did to see like, would anything break it down? Or is there something in the, you know, in the stomach juice that really breaks the food down? Um, he, he got mad again at this time and left again in 1831, um, only to meet up with him again a year later, 1832 in Washington, DC.
Starting point is 00:24:26 And that's just the two guys together. Like they spend some months together in Washington, DC, just the two of them, like hold up in a hotel somewhere doing experiments on a stomach. Can you imagine like what a weird period of time. Yeah, that would be, yeah, it would be an odd, odd way to spend your days. And like, and he's doing experiments like at one point they note that he put 12 raw oysters into a stomach hole. Oh God, come on.
Starting point is 00:24:51 Which I don't know. This sounds like the weirdest like romantic like they meet up again. It is. It's like a will they want they put food into his stomach like they at first they hated each other. But then something changed. He got, well, he got shot in the stomach with a shotgun, but can I offer you some oysters?
Starting point is 00:25:10 That is like the worst meat cut ever, I think, though, getting shot in the stomach with a shotgun. He would also make him exercise. I'm hoping not immediately after the role oysters. Yeah, let's hope so. The two finally parted ways after this Washington DC I'm hoping not immediately after they're all oysters. Yeah, let's hope so. The two finally parted ways after this Washington DC extravaganza trip, I don't know, I guess they toured the city, like the monuments, checked out the mall.
Starting point is 00:25:34 I don't think there were many at the point. No, not a lot to look at. There wasn't a lot to look at yet, but they had oysters and then they parted ways. And Beaumont wrote his book, where he wrote down all of his observations and proved once and for all that it was digestion, was a chemical process. There was acid as he theorized how to chloric acid and the juices as well as other things
Starting point is 00:25:56 that would break food down and it wasn't just mechanical. But even after he published his book and he brought him a lot of fame, which helped him a great deal in his private practice. So he had like this flourishing private practice at this point. He settled down in St. Louis and basically just was living out his life. But he kept writing to Alexis for the next 20 years. Wow.
Starting point is 00:26:16 To please come back, I will pay. And sometimes like he would say pay for his family and Alexis would be like, well, send me the money first so that I can, because I don't have the money, I can't front it for you, do you can't pay me back, but he wouldn't send him the money because he thought Alexis was a scoundrel and he would just spend it on booze or whatever, so he wouldn't pay for him to come back.
Starting point is 00:26:36 So they couldn't ever come to an arrangement and unfortunately, they never meet again because Dr. Beaumont slips on some icy stairs when he's visiting a patient at home in 1853 and hits his head and dies. Really, they're after. That's terrible. There is some sort of, I don't know if this brings you
Starting point is 00:26:53 some closure to this story. In 1856, Alexis Saint Martin is traveling with essentially a medicine show at this point. There's a fake doctor, he goes by Dr. Bunting and he's selling people stuff and kind of as a side show act, he has Alexis along. To be able to hold this tummy. Exactly. So you can show him off and he probably is doing weird things to him like Beaumont. Sure, sure. But he shows up in St. Louis. Now of course, Dr. Beaumont has passed away at this point, but Alexis goes and visits his widow and his son, Israel, Beaumont.
Starting point is 00:27:31 And the two of them kind of strike up a friendship and until Alexis dies, him and Israel exchange letters and speak of his father and kind of share their admiration for if nothing else, he did a lot of great things which is kind of interesting. Alexis lived to his 80s which is crazy. That's crazy. Yes. He died in 1880. On a sad note his family after he died left his body out to decompose in the sun for several days and then when they buried him,
Starting point is 00:28:05 they buried him very deep in an unmarked grave under a bunch of rocks, because they were so worried that somebody would dig him up and try to experiment on him more. I don't think that's necessarily sad. I think that's probably what he sounds like considering the way this cat lived his life. He probably would have been okay with that.
Starting point is 00:28:22 That's true. It's very pragmatic. It was a very pragmatic decision. It was years. It was like over 100 years before somebody would finally reveal where they buried the body, so that they could like pay tribute to him and the Canadian Physiological Society got his descendants
Starting point is 00:28:41 to reveal where the grave was. And then they went and put a plaque there basically, just marking You know, this is yeah, he made great contributions to science as did dr. Beaumont and you know they do this by the way to cows Oh really they create gastric fission is in cows different universities across the country and like study digestion and cow stomachs By making holes in their stomach. It's unfortunate, but that's probably more efficient than trying to track down a French Canadian boy or in the stomach.
Starting point is 00:29:09 You're shooting the stomach. Nersen back to health slowly and poorly over the course of six months and then have a torrid relationship over the next 30 years during which you try to get him, you try to lure him to you with oysters. Folks, that's gonna do it for us. Thank you so much for listening. I'll show.
Starting point is 00:29:25 We do have one additional sponsor. This is kind of weird. We've never had one of these before. It's a movie trailer, which is also weird, because this is a podcast. And movie trailers are visual medium. But they paid us some money, so we have to err it. So here's that first up.
Starting point is 00:29:42 Alexis St. Martin had it all. A great job. I am a voyager! Great friends! Girl, I don't know how you do it. It's like you can eat and eat whatever you want and you never can't wait. But there was something missing. I have a holy stomach!
Starting point is 00:30:02 William Beaumont thought he had it all figured out. I've already studied an entire year to be a doctor. But he had a problem. Anybody can relate to. I want to resolve the question of whether human digestion is purely a mechanical or a chemical process. Until both of them found the answer, were they least expected it. Him?
Starting point is 00:30:27 This sum, experience the most beautiful, on-again, off-again love story in history. Oh, or at least, you know, medical history. Dear Alexis, please come back to me and St. Louis and visit again. No, I will not, I cannot. I have some oysters. He was an uptight medical doctor, and he was a vagabond fur trader, and they couldn't have been more different. Alexis, you left your dirty moccasins on top of my white coat again.
Starting point is 00:31:02 It was not me! From Miller Boy at Productions, Matthew McConaughey is a Lexus Saint-Mart. I am just a boy, asking another boy to fix the hole in his stomach, that from his shotgun. No, but seriously, please fix the hole. And the little kid from Jerry McGuire, who's an adult now, as will your bo-bond. Stop, stop. You had me at gastric fistula. On June 16th, discovered that they're way to a man's heart, really is through his stomach,
Starting point is 00:31:42 in when Alexis met William or Dirty Digesting or the notebook. Full of observations on human digestion. Take your breath. They all pretty much work. But they can only be filled by you And this hole in my cup can't be filled with things I do. Oh God, oh God, yeah. I'll see that.
Starting point is 00:32:22 I would tell you. That sounds amazing. Sounds like a great picture. I also want to tell you to go get some t-shirts. The new Sawbund t-shirt is owned by Sittonyscistra Taylor. Is available at maxfunstore.com. A lot of sizes are selling out or low quantity. So go get one of those right now.
Starting point is 00:32:41 Yeah, go check them out. They're really cool. And Tweet a picture of this of Addis of you wearing them. A few people tweeted some pictures. Yeah, we love to see that. We love to see that. We love to know. Thanks to the Taxpayers for letting us use their song
Starting point is 00:32:54 Medicines is the Intro and Outro Reprogram. Thanks to Max Fun Network for having us as a part of their podcast family. There's a lot of great shows. You can find it maximum fun.org. If you like someone's a guarantee, you're going to like something else in that network. So go check it out. They got great shows like a rendered stop podcasting yourself. It's a very funny program. My brother, my brother and me.
Starting point is 00:33:17 Thank you, dear. I appreciate that. Bullseye, great show about pop culture. If you're interested in that, there's tons of great stuff there. Maximum Fun. Or that's going to do it for us until next Wednesday. I am Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always, don't draw a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone, Listener Supported.

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