Copy 2

Experiments and observations on the gastric juice, and the physiology of digestion / By William Beaumont. Reprinted from the Plattsburgh edition, with notes by Andrew Combe.

  • Beaumont, William, 1785-1853.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiments and observations on the gastric juice, and the physiology of digestion / By William Beaumont. Reprinted from the Plattsburgh edition, with notes by Andrew Combe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    health, only because we insist upon eating habitually more than the system requires, or than the gastric juice can digest. In indigestion, a sense of sinking and faintness in the region of the stomach, is often complained of. Dr Beau- mont mentions that St Martin frequently experienced the same sensations when the quantity of gastric juice with- drawn from the stomach during health exceeded one and a half or two ounces; and that, during the existence of the erythematic eruption, the same symptoms, accom- panied with dimness of sight, came on much earlier, and before more than two or three drachms of juice were ex- tracted. In dyspepsia, therefore, the same feelings may sometimes be an indication of a diminished secretion, and of the consequent impropriety of a full diet. Many persons who obviously live too freely, protest against the fact, because they feel no immediate incon- venience either from the quantity of food or the stimu- lants in which they habitually indulge; or, in other words, because they experience no pain, sickness, or headach—nothing perhaps except slight fulness and op- pression, which soon go off. Observation, extended over a sufficient length of time, shews, however, that the con~ clusion drawn is entirely fallacious, and that the real amount of injury is not felt at the moment merely, be- cause, for a wise purpose, Nature has deprived us of any consciousness of either the existence or the state of the stomach during health. In accordance with this, Dr Beaumont’s experiments prove that extensive erythema- tic inflammation of the mucous coat of the stomach was of frequent occurrence in St Martin after excesses in eat-