Published 30 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a999
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a999

Views & Reviews

Medical Classics

Human Gastric Function

Leonard Sinclair, emeritus consultant paediatrician, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London

Drls@gotadsl.co.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

This book is about a remarkable man and the elegant and revealing experiments conducted on him. Written by Stewart Wolf and Harold Wolff, two dedicated pioneers of psychosomatic medicine, it encompasses the life history of Tom Little, a man of 57 years, who had a gastric fistula. Tom was one of several patients with a gastrostomy who became experimental subjects. The first such experiments had been reported by William Beaumont in 1833, on Alexis St Martin, a Canadian voyageur with an unusually dramatic life. Tom was not like this. As noted by the famed physiologist Walter Cannon, who wrote this book’s introduction, he was sensitive, proud, and independent and thus an ideal subject for psychosomatic studies.

When Little was 9 years old he had hungrily gulped down hot clam chowder that his father had brought home to feed the family. This caused an oesophageal stricture. Little could no longer swallow, . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ