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 ****** 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.
Modern Cases.--Turning now to modern literature, we have cases of marvelous abstinence well substantiated by authoritative evidence. Dickson describes a man of sixty-two, suffering from monomania, who refused food for four months, but made a successful recovery. Richardson mentions a case, happening in 1848, of a man of thirty-three who voluntarily fasted for fifty-five days. His reason for fasting, which it was impossible to combat, was that he had no gastric juice and that it was utterly useless for him to take any nutrition, as he had no means of digesting it. He lived on water until the day of his death.
Richardson gives an interesting account of the changes noticed at the necropsy. There is an account of a religious mendicant of the Jain caste who as a means of penance fasted for ninety-one days.
The previous year he had fasted eighty-six days. He had spent his life in strict asceticism, and during his fasting he was always engrossed in prayer.
Collins describes a maiden lady of eighty, always a moderate eater, who was attacked by bronchitis, during which she took food as usual. Two days after her recovery, without any known cause, she refused all food and continued to do so for thirty-three days, when she died. She was delirious throughout this fast and slept daily seven or eight hours. As a rule, she drank about a wineglassful of water each day and her urine was scanty and almost of the consistency of her feces. There is a remarkable case of a girl of seventeen who, suffering with typhoid fever associated with engorgement of the abdomen and suppression of the functions of assimilation, fasted for four months without visible diminution in weight. Pierce reports the history of a woman of twenty-six who fasted for three months and made an excellent recovery.
Grant describes the "Market Harborough fasting-girl," a maiden of nineteen, who abstained from food from April, 1874, until December, 1877, although continually using morphia. Throughout her fast she had periodic convulsions, and voided no urine or feces for twelve months before her death. There was a middle-aged woman in England in 1860 who for two years lived on opium, gin, and water. Her chief symptoms were almost daily sickness and epileptic fits three times a week. She was absolutely constipated, and at her death her abdomen was so distended as to present the appearance of ascites. After death, the distention of the abdomen was found to be due to a coating of fat, four inches thick, in the parietes. There was no obstruction to the intestinal canal and no fecal or other accumulation within it.