Talk:William Beaumont

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William Beaumont was a distinguished Army surgeon, who lamented the fact that he was born to late (1785) to participate in the Revolutionary War; however, he achieved medical immortality by not only saving the life of a wounded Indian, but also discovering the process of digestion in the process. As medicines were in scarce supply, he grew his medicinal plants in the base garden at Fort Mackinac, Michigan, and was one of the first American physicians to use plants instead of chemicals as medicines. He died in St. Louis, Missouri in 1853. Numerous hospitals are named after him, and several medical schools have honor societies named euphoniously in his memory. William E. Beaumont. - 69.140.80.19 18 March 2006 69.140.80.19

I added the signature for the above comments. -- Astrochemist 13:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Handyman confusion

"While en route to St. Louis, Beaumont was ordered to stop at Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin to serve as his handyman again." To whom was Beaumont a handyman? Why would a doctor serve as a handyman? I suspect something missing here.

Chrysippo (talk) 11:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Twelve years latter that section is still confused. Although that line was changed to St. Martin, the text is still unclear on who was transferred where and why the stop in Wisconsin. Rmhermen (talk) 16:07, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Shotgun or musket?

This article (and the Britannica article [1]) says that the wound was caused by a shotgun. The Alexis_St._Martin article says the wound was caused by a musket. Both pages refer to [2] which says "St Martin's Stomach perforated by a musket-shot". However, it later says "The charge, consisting of powder and duck-shot", so I don't know what the correct terminology is. 42engineer (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

This is not a contradiction. A musket is loaded from the muzzle with loose powder and projectile being separate. The projectile can be either a single ball or multiple small shot. Rmhermen (talk) 16:01, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Opinions removed

I removed "While his work was groundbreaking and set the standard on the physiology of digestion, the moral and ethical issues relating to Beaumont's experimentation on St. Martin must never be dismissed or repeated." Someone just added his opinions and judgements to the article, but this is original research when no reliable source is cited. It is also perhaps unfair to apply 21st century medical ethics rules to a 19th century doctor's treatment of a patient. Edison (talk) 17:36, 28 October 2015 (UTC)