Haller cites a number of examples of long abstinence, but most extraordinary was that of a girl of Confolens, described by Citois of Poitiers, who published a history of the case in the beginning of the seventeenth century. This girl is said to have passed three entire years, from eleven to fourteen, without taking any kind of aliment. In the "Harleian Miscellanies" is a copy of a paper humbly offered to the Royal Society by John Reynolds, containing a discourse upon prodigious abstinence, occasioned by the twelve months' fasting of a woman named Martha Taylor, a damsel of Derbyshire. Plot gives a great variety of curious anecdotes of prolonged abstinence. Ames refers to "the true and admirable history of the maiden of Confolens," mentioned by Haller. In the Annual Register, vol. i., is an account of three persons who were buried five weeks in the snow; and in the same journal, in 1762, is the history of a girl who is said to have subsisted nearly four years on water. In 1684 four miners were buried in a coal-pit in Horstel, a half mile from Liege, Belgium, and lived twenty-four days without food, eventually making good recoveries. An analysis of the water used during their confinement showed an almost total absence of organic matter and only a slight residue of calcium salts.

Joanna Crippen lay six days in the snow without nutriment, being overcome by the cold while on the way to her house; she recovered despite her exposure. Somis, physician to the King of Sardinia, gives an account of three women of Piedmont, Italy, who were saved from the ruins of a stable where they had been buried by an avalanche of snow, March 19, 1765. thirty-seven days before. Thirty houses and 22 inhabitants were buried in this catastrophe, and these three women, together with a child of two, were sheltered in a stable over which the snow lodged 42 feet deep. They were in a manger 20 inches broad and upheld by a strong arch. Their enforced position was with their backs to the wall and their knees to their faces. One woman had 15 chestnuts, and, fortunately, there were two goats near by, and within reach some hay, sufficient to feed them for a short time. By milking one of the goats which had a kid, they obtained about two pints daily, upon which they subsisted for a time. They quenched their thirst with melted snow liquefied by the heat of their hands. Their sufferings were greatly increased by the filth, extreme cold, and their uncomfortable positions; their clothes had rotted. When they were taken out their eyes were unable to endure the light and their stomachs at first rejected all food.

While returning from Cambridge, February 2, 1799, Elizabeth Woodcock dismounted from her horse, which ran away, leaving her in a violent snowstorm. She was soon overwhelmed by an enormous drift six feet high. The sensation of hunger ceased after the first day and that of thirst predominated, which she quenched by sucking snow. She was discovered on the 10th of February, and although suffering from extensive gangrene of the toes, she recovered. Hamilton says that at a barracks near Oppido, celebrated for its earthquakes, there were rescued two girls, one sixteen and the other eleven; the former had remained under the ruins without food for eleven days. This poor creature had counted the days by a light coming through a small opening. The other girl remained six days under the ruin in a confined and distressing posture, her hands pressing her cheek until they had almost made a hole in it. Two persons were buried under earthquake ruins at Messina for twenty-three and twenty-two days each.

Thomas Creaser gives the history of Joseph Lockier of Bath, who, while going through a woods between 6 and 7 P.M., on the 18th of August, was struck insensible by a violent thunderbolt. His senses gradually returned and he felt excessively cold. His clothes were wet, and his feet so swollen that the power of the lower extremities was totally gone and that of the arms was much impaired. For a long time he was unable to articulate or to summon assistance. Early in September he heard some persons in the wood and, having managed to summon them in a feeble voice, told them his story. They declared him to be an impostor and left him. On the evening of the same day his late master came to his assistance and removed him to Swan Inn. He affirmed that during his exposure in the woods he had nothing to eat; though distressing at first, hunger soon subsided and yielded to thirst, which he appeased by chewing grass having beads of water thereon. He slept during the warmth of the day, but the cold kept him awake at night. During his sleep he dreamt of eating and drinking. On November 17, 1806, several surgeons of Bath made an affidavit, in which they stated that this man was admitted to the Bath City Dispensary on September 15th, almost a month after his reputed stroke, in an extremely emaciated condition, with his legs and thighs shriveled as well as motionless. There were several livid spots on his legs and one toe was gangrenous. After some time they amputated the toe. The power in the lower extremities soon returned.

In relating his travels in the Levant, Hasselquist mentions 1000 Abyssinians who became destitute of provisions while en route to Cairo, and who lived two months on gum arabic alone, arriving at their destination without any unusual sickness or mortality. Dr. Franklin lived on bread and water for a fortnight, at the rate of ten pounds per week, and maintained himself stout and healthy. Sir John Pringle knew a lady of ninety who lived on pure fat meat. Glower of Chelmsford had a patient who lived ten years on a pint of tea daily, only now or then chewing a half dozen raisins or almonds, but not swallowing them. Once in long intervals she took a little bread.

Brassavolus describes a younger daughter of Frederick King of Naples who lived entirely without meat, and could not endure even the taste of it, as often as she put any in her mouth she fell fainting. The monks of Monte Santo (Mount Athos) never touched animal food, but lived on vegetables, olives, end cheese. In 1806 one of them at the age of one hundred and twenty was healthy.

Sometimes in the older writings we find records of incredible abstinence. Jonston speaks of a man in 1460 who, after an unfortunate matrimonial experience, lived alone for fifteen years, taking neither food nor drink. Petrus Aponensis cites the instance of a girl fasting for eight years. According to Jonston, Hermolus lived forty years on air alone. This same author has also collected cases of abstinence lasting eleven, twenty-two, and thirty years and cites Aristotle as an authority in substantiating his instances of fasting girls.

Wadd, the celebrated authority on corpulence, quotes Pennant in mentioning a woman in Rosshire who lived one and three-quarters years without meat or drink. Granger had under observation a woman by the name of Ann Moore, fifty-eight years of age, who fasted for two years. Fabricius Hildanus relates of Apollonia Schreiera that she lived three years without meat or drink. He also tells of Eva Flegen, who began to fast in 1596, and from that time on for sixteen years, lived without meat or drink. According to the Rev. Thos. Steill, Janet Young fasted sixteen years and partially prolonged her abstinence for fifty years. The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, which contains a mention of the foregoing case, also describes the case of Janet Macleod, who fasted for four years, showing no signs of emaciation. Benjamin Rush speaks of a case mentioned in a letter to St. George Tucker, from J. A. Stuart, of a man who, after receiving no benefit from a year's treatment for hemiplegia, resolved to starve himself to death. He totally abstained from food for sixty days, living on water and chewing apples, but spitting out the pulp; at the expiration of this time he died. Eccles relates the history of a beautiful young woman of sixteen, who upon the death of a most indulgent father refused food for thirty-four days, and soon afterward for fifty-four days, losing all her senses but that of touch.

There is an account of a French adventurer, the Chevalier de Saint-Lubin, who had a loathing for food and abstained from every kind of meat and drink for fifty-eight days. Saint-Sauver, at that time Lieutenant of the Bastille, put a close watch on this man and certified to the verity of the fast. The European Magazine in 1783 contained an account of the Calabria earthquake, at which time a girl of eighteen was buried under ruins for six days. The edge of a barrel fell on her ankle and partly separated it, the dust and mortar effectually stopping the hemorrhage. The foot dropped off and the wound healed without medical assistance, the girl making a complete recovery. There is an account taken from a document in the Vatican of a man living in 1306, in the reign of Pope Clement V, who fasted for two years. McNaughton mentions Rubin Kelsey, a medical student afflicted with melancholia, who voluntarily fasted for fifty-three days, drinking copiously and greedily of water. For the first six weeks he walked about, and was strong to the day of his death.

Hammond has proved many of the reports of "fasting girls" to have been untrustworthy. The case of Miss Faucher of Brooklyn, who was supposed to have taken no food for fourteen years, was fraudulent. He says that Ann Moore was fed by her daughter in several ways; when washing her mother's face she used towels wet with gravy, milk, or strong arrow-root meal. She also conveyed food to her mother by means of kisses. One of the "fasting girls," Margaret Weiss, although only ten years old, had such powers of deception that after being watched by the priest of the parish, Dr. Bucoldianus, she was considered free from juggling, and, to everybody's astonishment, she grew, walked, and talked like other children of her age, still maintaining that she used neither food nor drink. In several other cases reported all attempts to discover imposture failed. As we approach more modern times the detection is more frequent. Sarah Jacobs, the Welsh fasting girl who attained such celebrity among the laity, was taken to Guy's Hospital on December 9, 1869, and after being watched by eight experienced nurses for eight days she died of starvation. A postmortem examination of Anna Garbero of Racconis, in Piedmont, who died on May 19, 1828, after having endured a supposed fast of two years, eight months, and eleven days, revealed remarkable intestinal changes. The serous membranes were all callous and thickened, and the canal of the sigmoid flexure was totally obliterated. The mucous membranes were all soft and friable, and presented the appearance of incipient gangrene.

Tags: Disorders and Diseases