"BONUS" Episode: Dr. William Beaumont and a Famous Gutshot (Radio Drama)
05/11/23 • 27 min
This episode will be a deviation from our normal format. Unfortunately, the entire episode we'd recorded for release this week was lost to the cyberspace aether. A whole episode just gone from existence. Discovering this with no time to re-record, we decided to release something previously unheard: a Poor Historians Podcast pilot episode.
We had played with several formats for the show and this episode was one such project. It's a brief radio drama about Dr. William Beaumont, a famous surgeon, who happened to treat a fur trader named Alexis St. Martin for a gunshot wound to the abdomen. St. Martin did not die from the wound, but instead a permanent channel grew between his abdominal skin and the inside of his stomach, medically called a "fistula". This was a window into his stomach (literally) and Dr. Beaumont used this opportunity to study how the stomach worked in digestion and its other general duties. In this episode, we imagined what it would have been like to use a time machine to travel to the early 19th century to see how this unfolded in real time.
We'll be back in two weeks with a regular episode, but hopefully our fans and new listeners find this a fun departure. The alternative was no episode and that would make us sad. Enjoy a very new Aaron, Max, and Mike with then just unboxed microphones, fumbling around a story in medical history.
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PHPod Merch Store (CLOSED)
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Podcast Linktree (social media links / reviews / ratings)
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#medicine #medicalhistory #history #historypodcast
This episode will be a deviation from our normal format. Unfortunately, the entire episode we'd recorded for release this week was lost to the cyberspace aether. A whole episode just gone from existence. Discovering this with no time to re-record, we decided to release something previously unheard: a Poor Historians Podcast pilot episode.
We had played with several formats for the show and this episode was one such project. It's a brief radio drama about Dr. William Beaumont, a famous surgeon, who happened to treat a fur trader named Alexis St. Martin for a gunshot wound to the abdomen. St. Martin did not die from the wound, but instead a permanent channel grew between his abdominal skin and the inside of his stomach, medically called a "fistula". This was a window into his stomach (literally) and Dr. Beaumont used this opportunity to study how the stomach worked in digestion and its other general duties. In this episode, we imagined what it would have been like to use a time machine to travel to the early 19th century to see how this unfolded in real time.
We'll be back in two weeks with a regular episode, but hopefully our fans and new listeners find this a fun departure. The alternative was no episode and that would make us sad. Enjoy a very new Aaron, Max, and Mike with then just unboxed microphones, fumbling around a story in medical history.
-----
PHPod Merch Store (CLOSED)
-----
Podcast Linktree (social media links / reviews / ratings)
-----
#medicine #medicalhistory #history #historypodcast
Previous Episode
Osteopathic Medicine and its Founder, A.T. Still
As the resident Doctor of Osteopathy (D.O.) on this podcast, Max will lead his MD colleagues through an examination of the roots of osteopathic medicine from its founding by Andrew Taylor Still, its quest to re-define medicine, and its eventual growth into the medical profession it is today. If you've ever wondered why some doctors have D.O. after their name, this episode will hopefully explain it all. This is one of those stories in medical history that does have a happy ending, in our humble opinion.
Sources:
https://books.google.com/books?id=H08EAAAAMBAJ&q=andrew+taylor+still+lightning+bone+setter&pg=PA108#v=snippet&q=andrew%20taylor%20still%20lightning%20bone%20setter&f=false (Life article about AT Still)
https://quackwatch.org/chiropractic/rb/bcc/8-2/ (Farrell comments on osteopathy)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22331804/ (DOs not able to serve in WWI and WWII as docs).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine_in_the_United_States#History (General overview)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Taylor_Still (AT Still’s life overview)
https://www.amboss.com/us/knowledge/Cranial_osteopathy/ (Cranial stuff)
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/4/e053468 (Summary of research on OMT)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33512391/ (OMT use in US nowadays)
https://www.aacom.org/become-a-doctor/about-osteopathic-medicine/history-of-ome (timeline of notable DO historical events)
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PHPod Merch Store (CLOSED)
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Podcast Linktree (social media links / reviews / ratings)
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#medicine #medicalhistory #history #historypodcast
Next Episode
Tuberculosis Chic: The Most Fashionable Disease of the Victorian Era
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease of historic proportions. Not only is it still around, infecting an estimated 10+million people in 2021 alone, but in a prior era, in Victorian England, having tuberculosis became something of a fashion achievement, believe it or not. In this episode, we'll explore how having this awful and deadly disease--especially in a time before antibiotics--became almost desirable in a twisted way. From corsets to fainting to so much more!
References
- Global Tubercolosis Report 2021 (WHO): https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240037021
- Consumptive Chic: A history of beauty, fashion, and disease, by Carolyn A. Day https://a.co/d/iMsua1k
- Thoracic Society Stop TB Plan: https://stoptb.org/assets/documents/global/plan/GlobalPlanToEndTB_TheParadigmShift_2016-2020_StopTBPartnership.pdf
- A starting place for Emily Bronte: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Bront%C3%AB#Adulthood
- Voluminous PDF on the sanitarium movement: https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cbmh.23.2.457
- Kaz Rowe the YouTuber breaks down TB’s effects on Edwardian fashion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwJ7xovktGU
- Wikipedia on Tuberculosis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis#Prevention
England’s Science Museum blog post on TB fashion: https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/tuberculosis-a-fashionable-disease/
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PHPod Merch Store (CLOSED)
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Podcast Linktree (social media links / reviews / ratings)
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#medicine #medicalhistory #history #historypodcast
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