"'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.'"
In which opinion all physiologists will join.
As I have said, hysterical women certainly do exhibit a marked ability to go without both food and drink. I have had patients abstain from sometimes one, sometimes the other, and sometimes both, for periods varying from one day to eleven, and this without much, if any, suffering, for as soon as the suffering came they did not hesitate to signify their desire to break their voluntary fasts. Real suffering is a condition which the hysterical woman avoids with the most assiduous care.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Curiosities of Medical Experience. London, 1837, Vol. I., page 269, article, Abstinence.
V.
THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF INANITION.
The opinion that food and drink are necessary to life is so generally accepted by mankind, that few venture to dispute the dictum of Virchow relative to Louise Lateau, "Fraud or miracle." But although it is impossible so far as we know for individuals to continue to exist for months and years without the ingestion of nutriment into the system, it is undoubtedly true that under certain circumstances life can be prolonged for days and weeks without any food of any kind going into the organism.