The contents of the weapon, consisting of powder and duck-shot, entered his left side from a distance of not more than a yard off. The charge was directed obliquely forward and inward, literally blowing off the integument and muscles for a space about the size of a man's hand, carrying away the anterior half of the 6th rib, fracturing the 5th rib, lacerating the lower portion of the lowest lobe of the left lung, and perforating the diaphragm and the stomach. The whole mass of the discharge together with fragments of clothing were driven into the muscles and cavity of the chest. When first seen by Dr. Beaumont about a half hour after the accident, a portion of the lung, as large as a turkey's egg was found protruding through the external wound.
The protruding lung was lacerated and burnt. Immediately below this was another protrusion, which proved to be a portion of the stomach, lacerated through all its coats. Through an orifice, large enough to admit a fore-finger, oozed the remnants of the food he had taken for breakfast. His injuries were dressed;extensive sloughing commenced, and the wound became considerably enlarged. Portions of the lung, cartilages, ribs, and of the ensiform process of the sternum came away. In a year from the time of the accident, the wound, with the exception of a fistulous aperture of the stomach and side, had completely cicatrized. This aperture was about 2 1/2 inches in circumference, and through it food and drink constantly extruded unless prevented by a tent-compress and bandage. The man had so far recovered as to be able to walk and do light work, his digestion and appetite being normal. Some months later a small fold or doubling of the stomachal coats slightly protruded until the whole aperture was filled, so as to supersede the necessity of a compress, the protruding coats acting as a valve when the stomach was filled. This valvular protrusion was easily depressed by the finger. St. Martin suffered little pain except from the depression of the skin. He took his food and drink like any healthy person, and for eleven years remained under Dr.
Beaumont's own care in the Doctor's house as a servant. During this time were performed the experiments on digestion which are so well known. St. Martin was at all times willing to lend himself in the interest of physiologic science. In August, 1879, The Detroit Lancet contains advices that St. Martin was living at that time at St. Thomas, Joliette County, Province of Quebec, Canada. At the age of seventy-nine he was comparatively strong and well, and had always been a hard worker. At this time the opening in the stomach was nearly an inch in diameter, and in spite of its persistence his digestion had never failed him.
Spizharny relates a remarkable case of gastric fistula in the loin, and collects 61 cases of gastric fistula, none of which opened in the loin. The patient was a girl of eighteen, who had previously had perityphlitis, followed by abscesses about the navel and lumbar region. Two fistulae were found in the right loin, and were laid open into one canal, which, after partial resection of the 12th rib, was dilated and traced inward and upward, and found to be in connection with the stomach. Food was frequently found on the dressings, but with the careful use of tampons a cure was effected.
In the olden times wounds of the stomach were not always fatal.
The celebrated anatomist, Fallopius, successfully treated two cases in which the stomach was penetrated so that food passed through the wound. Jacobus Orthaeus tells us that in the city of Fuldana there was a soldier who received a wound of the stomach, through which food passed immediately after being swallowed; he adds that two judicious surgeons stitched the edges of the wound to the integuments, thereby effecting a cure. There is another old record of a gastric fistula through which some aliment passed during the period of eleven years.
Archer tells of a man who was stabbed by a negro, the knife entering the cartilages of the 4th rib on the right side, and penetrating the stomach to the extent of two inches at a point about two inches below the xiphoid cartilage. The stomachal contents, consisting of bacon, cabbage, and cider, were evacuated. Shortly after the reception of the injury, an old soldier sewed up the wound with an awl, needle, and wax-thread;Archer did not see the patient until forty-eight hours afterward, at which time he cleansed and dressed the wound. After a somewhat protracted illness the patient recovered, notwithstanding the extent of injury and the primitive mode of treatment.
Travers mentions the case of a woman of fifty-three who, with suicidal intent, divided her abdominal parietes below the navel with a razor, wounding the stomach in two places. Through the wound protruded the greater part of the larger curvature of the stomach; the arch of the colon and the entire greater omentum were both strangulated. A small portion of the coats of the stomach, including the wound, was nipped up, a silk ligature tied about it, and the entrails replaced. Two months afterward the patient had quite recovered, though the ligature of the stomach had not been seen in the stool. Clements mentions a robust German of twenty-two who was stabbed in the abdomen with a dirk, producing an incised wound of the stomach. The patient recovered and was returned to duty the following month.