Beaumont High School - Caduceus Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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Xl l i 'i E ' 1 - 4, V an wr , H- ,, ,, f Yi ' jE?aLgg, ply ,g:'?? Aff' :E X T I-I E C A D U C E U S in the store of the American Fur Company to buy or sell buckskins, moccasins, flan- nels, and gaudy neckbands, when of a sudden a gun was accidentally discharged. The victim was St. Martin Alexis, a French Canadian. In the left side of his chest, at the sixth rib, a hole was torn, so large that the lung protruded, and also the stomach, with a hole in it large enough to admit a forefinger. After months of care, although bone, cartilage, and soft tissues sloughed away, the man recovered, but the stomach was tightly adhered to the ab- dominal walls, and still had a large hole in it. This case developed, and, two years later, Beaumont began a series of experi- ments on the properties of the stomach, effects of mastication and insalivation, and the comparative digestibility of different articles of food. These experiments were published in 1833 in a book entitled Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Diges- tion, and immediately the book was translated into French and German. The full importance of his work can be seen when one considers the fact that, up to this time, the knowledge of digestion was very meager and uncertain, and that, with the exception of the discovery of pepsin, the closest research of modern times has added little to the facts established by him. In 1840, his brilliant military career of more than twenty-five years was termi- nated. He established a large and lucrative practice in St. Louis, living in a beautiful country home situated in a section now between Jefferson Avenue and Beaumont Street fnear Olive Streetj, and enjoyed it so much that he spoke of it as follows: A few things only seem wanting to make it a paradise. Beaumont was prominent in the St. Louis Medical Society, serving as president in 1841. His final years found him still devoted to his family, his friends, and his work, from which he passed away in March, 1853, as a result of a fall on the icy pave- ment after a late visit to a patient. Few make Dilgrimages to his grave in Bellefon- taine Cemetery, yet there, with his wife's, lie the remains of a unique and remark- able man. A4 - A ix Ten

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if I: H lg X- CT?LCjjg l 'iw rxgn IP I Y U t' Ja eswa-::.f Q 'C .fr 1 -.3 uf J may fi- H1 Y THE CADUCEUS WILLIAM BEAUMONT By BEATRICE GLUTZ f ILLIAM BEAUMONTI All man- kind has profited by virtue of his having lived and having worked, l '--f :- - ' ' but few of us really appreciate what his name means. To most of us, it is the name of our school, and that is all: and we know little of Beaumont's life and why much honor is due him. He began his eventful career on No- vember 12, 1785, in Lebanon, Connecti- cut. Surprisingly little is known of his boyhood tendencies, excepting that fear- lessness and courage were always predomi- nant qualities. In his puritanical country home, his opportunities seemed few. Farm- ing and church going were not entirely to his liking: so, prompted by restless am- bition to enlarge his field of usefulness and gain a wider knowledge of the world, he left his home when he was twenty-one years old, and went to Champlain, a small New York village. For three years, there in the little red schoolhouse, he taught the lads and lassies the fundamental prin- ciples of readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmeticf' He was a very serious-minded young man. While teaching school, and also tending a store, he found time to study medical books: but there was no physician in Champlain whom he considered worthy of being his preceptor: so he Went to St. Al- bans, Vermont. There he studied under Dr. Benjamin Chandler, a prominent and capable practitioner. Young Beaumont was keenly observant and trulv devoted to the science of medi- cine. With the successful completion of his two years of apprenticeship, he was granted a license to practice. Only three months after the declaration of the War of 1812 he volunteered, and was immediately received into the army as an assistant-surgeon, and he was commissioned by President Madison in December, 1812. He fought in many thrilling battles, and not only displayed his patriotism, but put into immediate practice his medical knowledge. He resigned from the army in 1815 and entered into a successful partnership with Dr. Senter, an army surgeon, in the town of Plattsburg, where he already had hosts of friends and a well-earned professional reputation. When the medical corps of the army was reorganized in 1819, he was offered a position in the surgeon-general's office. He had been offered a 351,000 clerkship, but his ideas of activity turned from the clerkship to the call of the army, He was stationed at Fort Mackinac, and his let- ters describe most interesting experiences. lt is very evident, from references in his diary, that he was deeply interested in something besides his work at Mackinac. His dreams were realized when he wended his way back to Plattsburg, and was mar- ried to Deborah Platt, a beautiful, sympa- thetic young woman of much culture and great strength of character. They estab- lished a little home in the old fort, and in due time a little girl was born to them who brought loving cheerfulness into their lives. big boy. ln 1822 a tragedy occurred that was to its imprint on the pages of history Later this little daughter became sister to another little girl and a leave for all time to come. A throng of voy- agers, villagers, and Indians had gathered Nine

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SITE OF BEAUIVIONT By PETER BRAROE WISH it were possible to name incidents thrilling with historical signiiicance that have occurred on K the site of Beaumont, but in so far as I am enabled to determine, there were no Indian massacres, no battles, nor even noted residences, or other details of like interest to which we can point proudly as hoary traditions of our possession. Never- theless, the school stands on ground suffi- ciently varied in its habitation. Once the plot was a part of the vast Henri Chouteau estate that bordered on the Lindell place to the East. Some Hfty years or more ago the virgin soil was dis- turbed to become a truck farm, a rural manufactory of vegetables for St. Louis. Thereon it continued until the advent of the city's first baseball magnate, Von Der Abe, who established on it a baseball park for the use of his own team. While the place was yet new, another man of enter- prise, Foster, induced the owner to allow him to open a race track and a chute-the- chutes, and to make it a general amusement center in correlation. It must have been a busy, thriving insti- tution, indeed. In the afternoons the ball games were carried on, At night you would perceive bright and shining lights: you would hear a gay uproar and feminine shrieks from the chute-the-chutes, That, I might say, was a steep inclined railway with a large flat boat that rushed down to skim over a pool of water. All of the horse racing happened at night, a novel custom, -The Browns' Baseball Team began at Grand and Dodier, Sportsman's Park in the eighties, It moved to Vandeventer and Natural Bridge in '92 or '93. It played there under the name of the Browns until '99, when it was purchased by Robinson and the name changed to Cardinals. About live years ago the National League abandoned the ground and moved to Sportsman's Park. A real estate company improved the ground to the extent of sewers and a paved street through the center and constructed two houses at the western end. The project was left unfinished when the Board of Education bought it for its present com- mendable purpose. Eleven