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.
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. Christina Marshall, a girl of fourteen, went fifteen and one-half months without taking solid nourishment. She slept very little, seldom spoke, but occasionally asked the time of day. She took sweets and water, with beef tea at intervals, and occasionally a small piece of orange. She died April 18, 1882, after having been confined to her bed for a long while.
King, a surgeon, U.S.A., gives an account of the deprivation of a squad of cavalry numbering 40. While scouting for Indians on the plains they went for eighty-six hours without water; when relieved their mouths and throats were so dry that even brown sugar would not dissolve on their tongues. Many were delirious, and all had drawn fresh blood from their horses. Despite repeated vomiting, some drank their own urine. They were nearly all suffering from overpowering dyspnea, two were dead, and two were missing. The suffering was increased by the acrid atmosphere of the dry plains; the slightest exercise in this climate provoked a thirst. MacLoughlin, the surgeon in charge of the S.S. City of Chester, speaks of a young stowaway found by the stevedores in an insensible condition after a voyage of eleven days. The man was brought on deck and revived sufficiently to be sent to St. Vincent's Hospital, N.Y., about one and one-half hours after discovery, in an extremely emaciated, cold, and nearly pulseless condition. He gave his name as John Donnelly, aged twenty, of Dumbarton, Scotland. On the whole voyage he had nothing to eat or drink. He had found some salt, of which he ate two handfuls, and he had in his pocket a small flask, empty. Into this flask he voided his urine, and afterward drank it. Until the second day he was intensely hungry, but after that time was consumed by a burning thirst; he shouted four or five hours every day, hoping that he might be heard. After this he became insensible and remembered nothing until he awakened in the hospital where, under careful treatment, he finally recovered.
Fodere mentions some workmen who were buried alive fourteen days in a cold, damp cavern under a ruin, and yet all lived. There is a modern instance of a person being buried thirty-two days beneath snow, without food. The Lancet notes that a pig fell off Dover Cliff and was picked up alive one hundred and sixty days after, having been partially imbedded in debris. It was so surrounded by the chalk of the cliff that little motion was possible, and warmth was secured by the enclosing material. This animal had therefore lived on its own fat during the entire period.
Among the modern exhibitionists may be mentioned Merlatti, the fasting Italian, and Succi, both of whom fasted in Paris; Alexander Jacques, who fasted fifty days; and the American, Dr. Tanner, who achieved great notoriety by a fast of forty days, during which time he exhibited progressive emaciation. Merlatti, who fasted in Paris in 1886, lost 22 pounds in a month; during his fast of fifty days he drank only pure filtered water. Prior to the fast his farewell meal consisted of a whole fat goose, including the bones, two pounds of roast beef, vegetables for two, and a plate of walnuts, the latter eaten whole. Alexander Jacques fasted fifty days and Succi fasted forty days. Jacques lost 28 pounds and 4 ounces (from 142 pounds, 8 ounces to 114 pounds, 4 ounces), while Succi's loss was 34 pounds and 3 ounces. Succi diminished in height from 65 3/4 to 64 1/2 inches, while Jacques increased from 64 1/2 to 65 1/2 inches. Jacques smoked cigarettes incessantly, using 700 in the fifty days, although, by professional advice, he stopped the habit on the forty-second day. Three or four times a day he took a powder made of herbs to which he naturally attributed his power of prolonging life without food. Succi remained in a room in which he kept the temperature at a very high point. In speaking of Succi's latest feat a recent report says: "It has come to light in his latest attempt to go for fifty days without food that he privately regaled himself on soup, beefsteak, chocolate, and eggs. It was also discovered that one of the 'committee,' who were supposed to watch and see that the experiment was conducted in a bona fide manner, 'stood in' with the faster and helped him deceive the others. The result of the Vienna experiment is bound to cast suspicion on all previous fasting accomplishments of Signor Succi, if not upon those of his predecessors."