This was probably a scholastic book c.1978 or so. I recall it was orange, hardcover. Full of stories about science and maybe history. One story was about a cowboy who got shot in the belly and the doctor who cared for him dipped food into the open wound to observe digestion. Other stories like this
I don’t know the book, but the man with the hole was called Alexis St Martin, and his doctor was William Beaumont.
This sounds as if it might be one of Isaac Asimov’s nonfiction collections, though I can’t actually produce a title (he wrote some five hundred books, many on science.
thanks but it wasn’t asimov, it wasn’t sci-fi or even close it was more like ‘learn about science by stories that illustrate natural phenomenon’ it was a large book probably 14″ wide and 8″ tall.
The orange cover made me think it might be a volume of one of the older editions (1947) of the Childcraft set. Can’t find a list of contents but this link is for the Science & Industry volume and there are enough pictures that you should be able to tell.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/291258491062?lpid=82