March 9, 2007

Mackinac Island, Mich. - Adventure TV 2006, a Japanese television special aimed at children, recently featured the medical experiments conducted by Dr. William Beaumont on Mackinac Island in the 1820s. Beaumont, then post surgeon at Fort Mackinac, treated a French-Canadian voyageur named Alexis St. Martin, who had suffered a shotgun wound to his abdomen. The wound healed, but a permanent hole leading directly into the stomach remained, allowing Beaumont the unique opportunity to study the digestive process through this ‘window' into St. Martin's body.  Beaumont's groundbreaking experiments - which continued off and on for eight years as Beaumont was transferred around the United States - are the basis of our modern understanding of how the digestive system works.

The segment on Beaumont's Mackinac Island experiments was contained in a part of the TV special that focused on the human body. Working from information provided by Mackinac State Historic Parks, the production team built sets resembling both the American Fur Company retail store on the island and the post surgeon's quarters. A troupe of actors portraying voyageurs, St. Martin and Beaumont were employed in scenes that re-enacted the key moments in the story: the gunshot, Beaumont's treatment of St. Martin's injury, and the doctor's subsequent efforts to insert food in the wound and watch it being digested. Interspersed with these scenes were animations showing how the stomach breaks down food before emptying it into the rest of the digestive system.

The Beaumont segment occupied about five minutes of the two-hour primetime program, which also covered topics relating to insects, space and history. Adventure TV 2006 was produced by East Company of Tokyo, Japan and aired on the Tokyo Broadcasting System last December.

A public museum dedicated to Dr. William Beaumont's accomplishments is located within the American Fur Company Store, a historic building on Mackinac Island's Market Street maintained by Mackinac State Historic Parks.

Mackinac State Historic Parks, a family of living history museums and nature parks in northern Michigan's Straits of Mackinac, is an agency within the Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries. Its sites - which are accredited by the American Association of Museums - include Fort Mackinac, Mackinac Island State Park and Historic Downtown on Mackinac Island, and Colonial Michilimackinac, Historic Mill Creek and Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse in Mackinaw City. Visitor Information is available at (231) 436-4100 or on the Web at www.MackinacParks.com.

Read more press releases from the Department of History, Arts and Libraries (HAL).