"'Several times I have given her emetics on purpose to discover the truth; but the result always confirmed the statement that she had taken no food. It sounds strangely, but it is so. I have taken every precaution against deception, sometimes going into the house at eleven or twelve o'clock at night, without being announced, but have always found her the same, and lying in the same position occupied by her for the entire period of her invalidity. The springs of her bedstead are actually worn out with the constant pressure. My brethren in the medical profession at first were inclined to laugh at me, and call me a fool and spiritualist when I told them of the long abstinence and keen mental powers of my interesting patient. But such as have been admitted to see her are convinced. These are Dr. Ormiston, Dr. Elliott and Dr. Hutchison, some of the best talent in the city, who have seen and believed.'"
And then the following account is given of the accident from which the young lady suffered, and to which the remarkable phenomena she is said to exhibit are ascribed:
"The story of Miss Fancher's accident and its melancholy consequences is quite affecting. It is collected from the various statements given by half a dozen friends of the family to the Herald reporter. Interwoven with it is a thread of romance, a tale of early love and courtship, of a life embittered by a cruel accident, of patient waiting, and a final release of the suitor from his engagement to marry another.
"Mary's parents live in a sumptuous dwelling on Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, and were reported to be wealthy. Their favorite daughter Mollie, as she was called, was sent to Prof. West's High School in Brooklyn at an early age, and here developed many brilliant qualities of mind and heart, which augured well for her future. At seventeen she was pretty, petite and well cultivated. As a member of the Washington Avenue Baptist Sunday School, she met and learned to love a classmate, named John Taylor. An engagement followed the intimacy of the Sunday School class, and the young people looked forward with buoyant spirits to the bright life so soon to dawn upon them.
"But fate decreed differently. While getting off a Fulton Street car one day in 1864, on her return from school, the young lady slipped and fell backward. Her skirt caught on the step unseen by the conductor, who started the car on its way again. The poor girl was dragged some ten or fifteen yards before her cries were heard and the brake applied. When picked up she was insensible and was carried, suffering intense agony from an injured spine, to her home near by. Forty-eight hours afterward she was seized with a violent spasm which lasted for over two days. Then came a trance, when the sufferer grew cold and rigid, with no evidence of life beyond a warm spot under the left breast, where feeble pulsations of her heart were detected by Dr. Speir. Only this gentleman believed she was alive, and it was due to his constant assertion of the girl's ultimate recovery that Miss Fancher was not buried. Despite the best medical help and the application of restoratives, no change was brought about in the patient's condition until the tenth week, when the strange suspension of life ceased and breath was once more inhaled and breathed forth from her lungs.
"To their dismay the doctors then found that Mollie had lost her sight and the power of deglutition, the latter affliction rendering it impossible for her to swallow food or even articulate by the use of tongue or lip. Previous to her trance a moderate quantity of food had been given her each day; but since then she has not taken a mouthful of life-sustaining food. Spasms and trances alternated with alarming frequency since Miss Fancher was first attacked. First her limbs only became rigid and disturbed at the caprice of her strange malady; but as time passed her whole frame writhed as if in great pain, requiring to be held by main force in order to remain in the bed. She could swallow nothing, and lay utterly helpless until moved."
In the Sun, of November 24th, 1878, a fuller account of this young lady was given, mainly however, in regard to her "clairvoyant," or "second-sight" power. Relative to her abstinence from food, I quote the following conversation between the reporter and Dr. Speir.
"'Is it true that she has not partaken of food in all these thirteen years?'
"'No: I cannot say that she has not; I have not been constantly with her for thirteen years; she may have taken food in my absence. Her friends have used every device to make her take nourishment. Food has been forced upon her, and artificial means have been resorted to that it might be carried to her stomach. Nevertheless, the amount in the aggregate must have been very small in all these years.'
"'You have considered the case of such extraordinary importance as to take many physicians to see it?'