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BY THE SAME  AUTHOR.
CEREBRAL HYPEREMIA :  the Result of Mental Strain

     or Emotional Disturbances.  i6mo, cloth,    .    .  $i oo

  " Under the disguise of these hard words, Dr. Hammond presents a variety
of admirable counsels, with regard to an excess of blood in the head, pointing
out its causes, its symptoms, the  mode of its medical treatment, and the
means of its prevention. —iV. Y. Tribune.

  "The work is not only of interest to the medical man, but also is one easily
understood and to be read with profit by brain-workers of all classes, whether
in profession, in literature or business. It treats of the cause of headaches, the
wakefulness, the illusions or delusions, and feelings of tightness in the head,
which so many of our American writers and thinkers experience, and it gives
valuable information available by laymen as to the prevention and remedy for
this affection, which later on leads to insanity or death."—Boston Traveller.

                   G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, NEW YORK. 
FASTING  GIRLS;
THEIR PHYSIOLOGY AND  PATHOLOGY
        WILLIAM  A.  HAMMOND, M. D.

PROFESSOR OF DISEASES OF THE MIND AND NERVOUS SYSTEM IN THE
   MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF
     NEW YORK, AND IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT, ETC.
  " There is no new thing under the Sun."
                           —Eccl. I, 9.

" Nil spernat auris, nee tamen credat statim."
                               —Phvedrus.
     NEW YORK
P. PUTNAM'S SONS
   182 FIFTH AVENUE       \.;fj

        1879
 
302

\%19
    Copyright by
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
       1879. 
PREFACE.
  In issuing this  little book I have been actuated by a desire
to do something towards the removal of a lamentable degree of
popular ignorance.
  It seems that no proposition that can be made is so absurd
or impossible  but that  many people, ordinarily regarded  as
intelligent, will be found to accept it and to aid in its propaga-
tion.  And hence, when  it is asserted that a  young lady has
lived for fourteen years  without food of any  kind, hundreds
and thousands of  persons throughout the length and breadth of
a civilized land  at once  yield their belief to the monstrous
declaration.
  I  have  confined  my  remarks entirely to the  question  of
abstinence from food.  The other supernatural gifts, the pos-
session of which is claimed, would, if considered, have  extended
the limits  of this  little volume beyond the bounds which were
deemed expedient.   At some, future time I may be tempted to
discuss  them.   In the meantime it is well to call to mind that
a proposition {see  Appendix) which I made solely in the interest
of truth was disregarded, ostensibly with the  desire  to  avoid
publicity, when in fact the daily press had for weeks been filled
with reports in detail, furnished by the friends of the young
lady in question, of the marvellous  powers she was said to
possess.
  A portion of this essay, which bore upon the matter discussed,
has been taken from  another volume by the author, published
several years ago  , and now out of print.
                                 William A. Hammond.
  43 West 54TH Street,
     March 1st, 1879. 
 
CONTENTS
                                              PAGE
  I  Abstinence in the Middle Ages               i

 II  Abstinence in Modern Times   ....   6

III  Abstinence from Food,  with Stigmatization .  31

IV  The Brooklyn Case......48

 V  The Physiology and Pathology of Inanition   59 
 
FASTING  GIRLS.
                            i.

             abstinence in the middle ages.
  Among the many remarkable manifestations by which  hys-
teria exhibits itself,  for the astonishment of the credulous and
uneducated  portion of the  public,  and—alas, that it should
have to be  said,—for  the delectation of an occasional weak-
minded and  ignorant physician, the  assumption of the  ability
to live without food  may be assigned a prominent place.   I am
not aware that this power has been  claimed in  its fullest  de-
velopment for the  male  of  the human  species.  When he is
deprived of  food he dies in a few days, more or less, according
to his physical condition as regards adipose tissue and strength
of constitution ; but if a  weak emaciated girl asserts that  she
is able to exist for years without eating, there are at once cer-
tificates and letters from clergymen, professors, and even physi-
cians, in support of the truth  of her  story.  The  element of
impossibility goes for nothing against the bare word of such a
woman, and her statements are accepted with a degree of  con-
fidence which is lamentable to witness in this era of the world's
progress.
  The  class  of deceptions occasionally induced by hysteria, 
 2                    FASTING GIRLS.
 and embracing these "fasting girls," has been known for many
 years, though it is only in comparatively recent times  that the
 instances have  been taken at their proper value.   Gorres* gives
 a number of examples occurring among male and female saints
 and other holy persons, in which  partial  or total abstinence
 from food was said to have existed for long periods.
  Thus Liduine of Schiedam fell ill in 1395, and remained in
 that state till her  death, thirty-three years  subsequently.  Dur-
 ing  the  first nineteen years she ate every day nothing but a
 little piece of apple the size of  a holy wafer,  and drank a little
 water and a swallow of beer, or sometimes a little sweet milk.
 Subsequently,  being unable  to digest beer  and milk, she  re-
 stricted herself to a little  wine and water, and  still  later she
 was obliged to confine herself to water alone, which served her
 both as  food  and drink.  But after nineteen years  she took
 nothing  whatever, according to her own statement  made to
 some friars in 1422, she averring that for eight years nothing in
 the way of nourishment had passed  her lips, and that for twenty
years she had  seen neither the sun nor  the moon,  nor had
 touched the earth with her feet.
  Saint Joseph of Copertino remained for five  years  without
 eating bread, and ten  years without drinking wine, contenting
himself with dried fruits, which he mixed with various bitter
 herbs.   The herb which he used  for Fridays  had  such  an
 atrocious taste, that  one of the brethren, by simply putting
his tongue to it, was seized with vomiting,  and for several days
thereafter everything  he ate excited  nausea.  He fasted for

  *  La  Mystique  divine  naturelle et diabolique.  Paris. 1861    t I  d
 194, etseq.                                               "' r' 
                     MIDDLE AGES.                     3
forty days seven times every year, and during these periods ate
nothing at all except on Sundays and Thursdays.
  Nicolas of Flue, as soon  as  he embraced the monastic life,
subsisted altogether on the holy eucharist.  The pious Gorres
in explanation of this miracle says :
  "In ordinary nourishment he who  eats  being superior  to
that which  is eaten, assimilates the aliments which he takes,
and communicates to them his  own nature.  But in the eu-
charist  the  aliment is more powerful than he who eats.   It is
no  longer therefore the  nourishment which  is assimilated, but
on  the contrary, it assimilates the man, and introduces him into
a superior sphere.  An entire change is produced.   The super-
natural life in some way or other  absorbs  the natural life, and
the man instead of living on earth, lives henceforth by grace
and by heaven."
  This is about on a par, as  regards lucidity and logic, with the
explanations which  we are  given of the  alleged case of pro-
longed fasting in Brooklyn.
  Doubts arose  in regard to Nicolas, and  the bishop  had him
watched, but without detecting him in fraud.  Finally he ordered
him to eat a piece of bread in his presence.   Nicolas did as he
was commanded, but at the  first mouthful he was seized  with
violent vomiting.   The bishop  inquired  of  him how he thus
managed to live without eating, to which the  brother answered
that when  he  assisted  at mass, and when  he  took  the  holy
eucharist, he felt a degree of strength and suppleness  like that
derived from the most nutritious food.
  Still the doubters continued, and  the  inhabitants of Under-
wold, where Nicholas lived, appear to  have  been at  first very 
4
FASTING GIRLS.
much inclined to suspect him of deceit.  But they were finally
converted,  for having  during a whole  month  guarded every
approach to his  cabin, and having  during that time detected
no one  in  taking food to  him, they were  convinced  that  for
that  time at least  he had  lived without food.  The sceptical
reasoner of the present day would probably regard the test as
insufficient.
  In  1225, Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, having heard that there
was  at  Leicester a  nun who had  taken  no nourishment  for
seven years, and who lived only on the eucharist, which she
took every Sunday, gave at  first no faith to the story.  He sent
to her,  however, fifteen  clerks, with  directions to watch her
assiduously for fifteen days, never for  an instant losing sight
of her.  The  clerks reported to him  that they had  strictly
obeyed  his commands ; that she had  taken no nourishment,
and  that yet she nevertheless preserved her full  strength and
health.  Whereupon the Bishop  declared himself convinced,
" as," adds Gorres, " it was  proper for a sensible man to do."
  Among others of  the holy persons who acquired  the  power
of living on the sacramental bread, may be  mentioned  St.
Catharine of Sienna, Saint  Rose of Lima, Saint Collete, Saint
Peter of Alcantara, and many others.
  But if saints  and other holy people  were able,  through
miraculous  power, to live without food, the same ability was
claimed  for those who were  under the influence of demons and
devils.  Gorres* states  that  a  person possessed by a devil often
loses  all taste  for food of any kind,  and can retain no nourish-
ment_ in his body.   Another symptom  is  a disgust which is
*Op. cit. t. IV., p. 446. 
                     MIDDLE AGES.                     5
formed  for  the companionship of  other persons.  Thus a man
was  tormented by  a demon, who forced him to fly into the
forests,  where he hid  himself from mankind.  One  night he
quit his house, and  concealed himself in a cavern, remaining
there entirely without food  for sixteen days.  Again  he  re-
mained   in  the woods  twenty-four  days, neither eating nor
drinking during this period.  Finally his children found him,
and taking him to a priest, had the devil exorcised, and he was
cured.
   Saint  Prosper,  of  Aquaintoin, speaks  of  a young  girl pos-
sessed by a devil, and who went seventy days without  eating.
Notwithstanding this long fast, she did  not become emaciated,
because every night at twelve o'clock a bird sent by the devil
took a mysterious nourishment to her.
   An astonishing feature in the cases of  the diabolical abstain-
ing  from food, is that, as in the  holy instances, they  exhibit
various  manifestations  of hysteria.   Gorres, with a  charming
degree  of simplicity, details these  symptoms and failing, under
the  influence of the predominent idea which fills him, to recog-
nize their real character, ascribes them without hesitation to
devilish agency.  Thus he says :
   " The functions of the organs of nutrition are sometimes pro-
 foundly altered in the possessed, and these alterations are mani-
fested  by violent cramps, which show the extent to which the
muscular system  is affected.   The hysterical lump in the throat
is  a frequent phenomenon in possession.  A young girl in the
Valley  of  Calepino had  all  her limbs twisted and contracted,
and had in the oesophagus a sensation  as if a ball was some-
times rising in her throat, and again falling to her stomach. 
6                    FASTING GIRLS.
Her countenance was of an ashen hue, and she had a constant
sense  of weight and pain  in  the head.   All  the  remedies of
physicians  had  failed, and  as evidences of  possession were
discovered  in  her, she  was brought to Brignoli (a priest) who
had recourse to supernatural means, and cured her."
  Strange to say, the ability to live  on the eucharist, and to
resist  starvation by diabolical power, died  out with the middle
ages, and was replaced by the " fasting  girls," who still con-
tinue  to amuse us with their vagaries.  To  the consideration
of some of  the  more striking instances of more  recent  times
the  attention of the  reader   is  invited, in  the  confidence
that  much  of  interest in the  study of the  "History   of
Human  Folly" will be  adduced.
                            II.

              abstinence in modern times.
  Among the  more striking cases under this head,  is  that
of  Margaret  Weiss, a young girl  ten years of  age,  who
lived at Rode,  a small village near Spires, and whose history
has come down to us through various channels, but principally
from Geraldus Bucoldianus,* who had  the medical  charge of
her, and  who  wrote a little book describing  his patient.
Margaret is said to have abstained from ail food and drink for
three years,  in  the meantime growing,  walking about,  laugh-
ing, and talking  like  other children of her age.   During the
first year,  however,  she  suffered  greatly  from  pains in
   * " De puella  quae  sine cibo et potu vitam transigit." Parisiis Ann.
MDXLII. 
                     MODERN TIMES.                    7
her head and abdomen, and, a common  condition in hysteria
—all four of her limbs  were contracted.   She passed  neither
urine nor foeces.  Margaret, though only ten years old—hys-
teria developes the secretive faculties—played her part so well
that,  after being watched by the priest of the parish  and Dr.
Bucoldianus, she  was considered free  from  all juggling, and
was sent home to her friends by order of  the King, " not," the
doctor  adds, "without  great admiration  and princely  gifts."
Although fully accepting the fact of Margaret's abstinence, Dr.
Bucoldianus appears to have been somewhat  staggered, for he
asks very pertinently : " Whence comes the animal heat, since
she neither eats nor drinks,  and why does the body grow when
nothing goes into it ? "
    Schenckius * quotes from Paulus Lentulus the " Wonderful
History of the  Fasting  of Appolonia  Schreira,  a virgin  in
Berne."  Lentulus  states that  he was with this maid on three
occasions, and that, by order  of  the  magistrate of Berne, she
was taken to that city and a strict  guard  kept upon  her.  All
kinds of means were  set in operation to detect imposture if
any existed, but  none was discovered,  and she was  set at lib-
erty as a genuine case of ability to live  without food.   In the
first year of her  fasting she  scarcely slept, and in the second
year never closed her eyes in sleep; and  so she continued for
a long while after.

   * " HaraTqcijGeuv, sive observationum medicarum, novarum, admirabil-
ium et monstrasarum volumen; tomis septem  de toto homine institutum."
Lugduni 1606, p. 306.
   These cases are cited by Wanley in his " Wonders  of the Little
World," but I have taken care in most instances  to refer to the originals,
several of tvhich are in my library. 
8                     FASTING GIRLS.
    Schenckius also advances the case of Katharine Binder, of
the  Palatinate,  who was closely watched  by  a clergyman, a
statesman, and two doctors of medicine, without the detection
of fraud on her part.  She was said to have taken nothing but
air into her system for nine years and more, as Lentulus report-
ed on the authority of Fabricius.  This last-named physician
told Lentulus of another case, that of a girl fourteen years old,
who certainly had  taken  neither food  nor drink  for at least
three years.
   " But," says Dr. Hakewel * " the strangest that I have met
with of this kind, is the history of Eve  Fliegen, out of Dutch
translated into  English,  and  printed at London, Anno 1611,
who, being born at Meurs, is said to have taken no kind of sus-
tenance for the space of fourteen years  together; that is, from
the year of her age, twenty-two to thirty-six, and from the year
of our Lord 1567 to 1611;  and this we  have confirmed by the
testimony of the magistrates of the town of Meurs, as also by
the minister who made  trial of her in his house  thirteen days
together by all the means he could devise, but could detect  no
imposture."  Over the picture of this maid, set in front of the
Dutch copy, stand these Latin verses :
         " Meursse hsec quam cernis decies ter, sexque  peregit,
         Annos, bis septem prorsus non viscitur annis
         Nee potat, sic sola sedet, sic pallida vitam
         Ducit, et exigui se oblectat floribus horti."
   Thus rendered in the English copy:
         " This maid of Meurs thirty and six years spent,
          Fourteen of which she took no nourishment;
* " Wonders of the Little World."  London, 1806, 
                    MODERN TIMES.                    9
          Thus pale and wan she sits sad and alone,
          A garden's all she loves to look upon."
   Franciscus Citesius* physician to the King of France and
to Cardinal Richelieu, devotes a good deal of space  and atten-
tion to the case  of  Joan Balaam, a native of the city of Con-
stance.   She was well grown, but of bad manners.   About the
eleventh year of her age she was attacked with a  fever, and
among other symptoms vomited for twenty days.  Then she
became  speechless  and  so  continued for  twenty-four  days.
Then she talked, but her speech  was raving and incoherent.
Finally she lost all power of motion  and of sensibility in the
parts  below the head  and could  not swallow.   From thence-
forth she  could  not be persuaded  to take food.  Six months
afterwards she regained the use of  her limbs, but the  inability
to swallow remained and she acquired a great loathing for all
kinds of  meat and  drink.  The secretions and excretions ap-
peared to be  arrested.   Nevertheless  she was very industrious,
employing her time in running  errands, sweeping the house,
spinning,  and such  like.   This maid continued thus  fasting for
the space of nearly three years, and then by degrees took to
eating and drinking again.
  Before coming to more recent cases, there is one other to
which I desire to refer for the reason mainly that  in it there
was probably organic disease in addition to fraud and hysteria.
It is  cited by Fabricius f and by Wanley.   Anno Dom., 1595, a
maid of about thirteen years was brought out of the dukedom

  * Opuscula Medica.  Parisiis, 1639, pp. 64, 65, 66.
  t Observationum et  curationum chirurgicse, centuria secunda.  Genevae,
1611, p. 116. 
10                   FASTING GIRLS.
of Juliers to Cologne, and there in  a broad street at the sign
of the White Horse exposed to the sight of as many as desired
to see her.  The parents  of  this maid affirmed  that she had
lived without any kind of food or drink for  the space of  three
whole years ; and this they confirmed  by the testimony of
divers persons,  such  as are  worthy of credit.  Fabricius ob-
served her with great care.   She was of a sad and melancholy
countenance;  her whole  body was  sufficiently fleshy except
only her belly, which was compressed so as  that  it seemed to
cleave to her back-bone.  Her liver and the rest of her bowels
were perceived to be hard by laying the hand on the belly. As
for excrements, she voided none ; and did so far  abhor all
kinds of food, that when one, who came  to  see her  privately,
put a little sugar in her mouth she immediately swooned away.
But  what was most  wonderful was, that this maid  walked
up  and down,  played with other girls,  danced,  and  did all
other things that were done by girls of her age ; neither had
she any difficulty of breathing, speaking or  crying out.  Her
parents declared that she had been  in this condition for three
years.
   A great many more to  the same effect might  be  adduced,
but the foregoing are sufficient to indicate the fact that belief
in the possibility of such  occurrences  was quite  general, and
that if doubt did exist in regard to their real nature, it was not
so strong as not readily to be overcome by the tricks  and de-
vices of hysterical women.
   In the following instances of more modern  date the reader
will perceive the view which is taken  of them by physicians of
the present day, and will doubtless discover  their real nature. 
                    MODERN TIMES.                   U
    About sixty-five years ago, a woman of Sudbury, in  Staf-
 fordshire, England, named Ann Moore, declared that she did
 not eat, and a number of persons volunteered to watch her, in
 order to ascertain whether or not she  was speaking the truth.
 The watch was continued for three weeks and then the watch-
 ers, as in other instances, reported that Ann Moore was a rea1
 case of abstinence from food of all kinds.   The Bible was al-
 ways kept open on Ann's bed.  Her emaciation  was so extreme
 that it was said her vertebral column could be felt through the
 abdominal walls.  This  sad condition was asserted  to  have
 been caused by her washing the linen  of a person affected with
 ulcers.  From that time she experienced a dislike for food, and
 even nausea at the sight or mention of it.
    As soon as the watchers reported in favor of the genuine-
 ness of Ann's pretensions her notoriety increased, and visitors
 came from all parts of the country, leaving donations to the
 extent of two  hundred and  fifty pounds in the  course of two
 years.   Doubts,  however, again  arose, and, bold from the im-
 munity she had experienced  from the first investigation, Ann
 in an evil moment, for the continuance of her fraud, consented
 to a second watching.  This committee was composed of nota-
 ble persons, among them  being Sir Oswald Mosley, Bart., Rev.
 Legh Richmond, Dr.  Fox, and his son, and many other  gen-
tlemen of the country.  Two of them were always in her room
night and day.  At the suggestion of Mr. Francis Fox, the bed-
stead, bedding, and the woman  in it were placed on a weighing
machine, and thus it  was ascertained that she regularly lost
weight daily.   At the expiration of the ninth day of this strict
watching, Dr.  Fox found her evidently sinking and  told her 
 12                   FASTING GIRLS.
 she would soon die unless she took food.  After a little prevar-
 ication, the woman signed a written confession that she was an
 impostor, and had  " occasionally taken sustenance  for the last
 six years."  She also stated that during the first watch of three
 weeks her  daughter had contrived, when  washing her face, to
 feed her every morning, by using towels made very wet with
 gravy, milk, or strong arrowroot gruel, and had  also conveyed
 food from mouth to mouth in kissing her, which it is presumed
 she did very often.*
   In a clinical lecture delivered at St. George's Hospital,f Dr.
 John W. Ogle calls attention to the simulation of fasting as a
 manifestation of hysteria, and relates  the following amusing
 case:
   A girl strongly hysterical, aged twenty, in spite  of  all per-
 suasion and medical treatment, refused  every kind of  food, or
 if made to eat, soon vomited the contents of the stomach.  On
 November 6th, 1869, whilst the girl was apparently suffering in
 the same manner, the Queen passed the hospital on her way to
 open Blackfriars bridge.  She arose in bed so as to look  out of
 the window, although  up to  this time  declaring  that  every
 movement of her body caused intense pain.  On December 29,
 the following letter in the girl's handwriting, addressed to an-
 other patient in the same ward, was picked up  from the  floor :
 ' My Dear Mrs. Evens,—I was very sorry you should take the
trouble of cutting me such a nice piece of bread and butter,
yesterday.   I would of taken it but all of  them saw you  send
  * Wonderful Characters :  By Henry Wilson and James Caulfield. Lon-
 don.
  t British Medical Journal, July 16, 1870. 
                     MODERN TIMES.                   13
it, and  then  they  would have made  enough  to  have talked
about.  But  I should be very glad if you would cut me a nice
piece of crust and put it in a piece of paper and send it, or else
bring it, so that they do not see it, for they all watch me very
much, and I  should like to be your friend and you to  be mine.
Mrs. Winslow, (the nurse) is going to chapel.  I will make it up
with you when  I can go as far.  Do not send it if you  cannot
spare it.  Good bye, and God bless you.'  Although she pre-
varicated  about this letter, she appears to have gradually im-
proved from  this time on, and one clay walked  out of the hos-
pital and left it altogether.  She subsequently wrote a letter to
the authorities expressing her regret at having gone on  as she
did.
    One of the most remarkable instances of the kind, is that of
Sarah Jacob, known as  the " Welsh  Fasting Girl," and whose
history and tragical death excited a great deal  of comment in
the medical and lay press  in  Great Britain  a  few years ago.
The following account of the case is mainly  derived from Dr.
Fowler's * interesting work.
    Sarah  Jacob was  born May 12th,  1857.   Her parents were
farmers and  were uneducated, simple minded, and  ignorant
persons.  In her earlier years she had been healthy, was intel-
ligent, given  to religious reading, and was said to have  writ-
ten poetry of her own  composition.   She was a very pretty
child  and  was, according to the testimony of the vicar, the Rev.
Evan Jones, a "good girl."
   * A complete History of the Welsh Fasting Girl (Sarah Jacob,) with
Comments thereon, and Observations on Death from Starvation.  London,
1871. 
14                   FASTINV GIRLS.
   About February  15th, 1867, when  she was not quite ten
years of age, she complained of pain in the pit of the stomach,
and one morning on  getting up, she  told her mother that she
had found her mouth full of bloody froth.  The pain continued,
and medical attendance was obtained.  Soon afterwards she had
strong convulsions  of an epileptiform character and then other
spasms of a clearly hysterical form, during which her body was
bent in the form of a bow as in tetanus, the head and heels only
touching the bed.   Then the muscular spasm ceased and she
fell at full length on  the bed.   For a whole  month  she con-
tinued in a state of unconsciousness, suffering from frequent
repetitions of severe convulsive attacks, during which time she
took little food.  Mr. Davies, the surgeon, said in his evidence,
that she was for a whole month, in a kind of permanent fit, ly-
ing on her back, with rigidity of all  the muscles.  For some
time her life was despaired of, then her fits ceased to be con-
vulsive and consisted of short periods of loss of consciousness
with sudden awakings.  For the next two or three  months (till
August, 1867) she took daily, from six, gradually decreasing to
four, teacupfuls of  rice and milk, or oatmeal and  milk, which
according to her father's account, was cast  up again  imme-
diately and blood  and  froth with it.  During this  time the
bowels were only acted on once in six or nine days.   " Up to
this time," said her father, " she  could move both arms  and
one leg, but the other leg was rigid."
    By the beginning of  October,  1867, her  quantity  of daily
food had, it was affirmed, dwindled down to nothing but a little
apple about the size  of a pill, which she took  from  a tea-spoon.
At this time she made water about every other day ; she looked 
                    MODERN TIMES.                   15
very bad in the face, but was not thin.   On  the  tenth  day of
October, it was solemnly declared that  she ceased to take any
food whatever, and so continued till the day of her  death, De-
cember 17th, 1869, a period of two years, two months, and one
week.
    " Of the veracity of the assertion in respect of  the one week"
says Dr. Fowler, " there  is unfortunately  plenty of evidence.
To the absurdity of believing in the barest possibility of twenty-
six months absolute abstinence,  it is sufficient to  reply that
when to  our knowledge, she was  completely deprived of food,
the girl died !   The parents most persistently impressed upon
every private as well as official visitor, both before and during
the last fatal watching, that the girl did  not  take food ;  that
she could not swallow ; that whenever food was mentioned to
her she became as it were, excited ; that when it was  offered
to her she  would have  a fit, or the offer would make  her ill.
The sworn testimony of  the vicar, the Rev. Wm.  Thomas, Sis-
ter Clinch, Anne Jones,  and the other nurses, is  sufficiently
confirmative on this point.  Furthermore, the parents went so
far as to expressly forbid the mere mention  of food in the girl's
presence."
    Towards the end of October, 1867, the  case had attracted
so much attention that the inhabitants in the neighborhood first
began visiting the marvellous little girl.
    " In the beginning of November of the same year, the Rev.
Evan Jones, B.D., the vicar of the Parish,  was  sent for by the
parents to visit Sarah Jacob.   He was at once—by the  mother
—told of the girl's wonderful fasting powers ; it was admitted
she  took water occasionally.   He was also informed  of the 
16                   FASTING GIRLS.
extraordinary perversion of her natural functions (the suppres-
sion of urine and fcecal evacuations.)  He found her lying on
her back in bed, which was covered with books.   There was
nothing then remarkable  about  her dress.  The girl  looked
weak  and delicate, though  not  pale, and answered only in
monosyllables.  ' The mother said her child was very anxious
about the state of her soul, that it had such an effect upon her
mind that she could not sleep.'  I asked her myself if she had
a desire to become a member of the Church of England ?  She
said ' Yes!'   She  continued  to express  that wish until  July,
1869.    At this time the reverend gentleman did not believe in
the statements relative to the girl's  abstinence.   " Every time "
he says, " that I had a conversation with her up to the  end of
1868,  the parents both persisted  that she lived without food,
and continued their statements in January and February, 1869.
I remonstrated with them and dwelt upon the apparent impossi-
bility  of the thing.   They still persisted that it was a fact."
    " Even as late  as September, 1869, the vicar reiterated his
ministerial  remonstrances.   When,  in the  beginning of the
spring of 1869, he  observed the fantastical changes the parents
made in the girl's daily attire, he  told them about the  remarks
made in  the papers about this dressing and dwelt upon the im-
propriety of it.   They replied, ' She  had  no other pleasure—
they did not like denying it to her.'   During the following sum-
mer, finding that the girl looked more plump in the face and
that her  general  improvement was more  conspicuous, he said,
' Sarah is evidently improving and gaining, and you  say she
takes no food; you are certainly imposing on the public.'  I
then dwelt on the  sinfulness of  continuing  the fraud on the 
                    MODERN TIMES.                   17
public.  I said there were on record several cases of alleged
fasting, some of which had been put to the test  and had been
discovered to be impositions;  that those  families would  ever
be held in execration by posterity, and such would be the case
with them whenever this imposture was found out.  The mother
then assured  me  no imposition  would be discovered in  that
house, because there was none."
   The father and mother both said that the Lord provided for
her in a most natural way, and  that  it was a  miracle.  The
father always talked about the " Doctor Mawr," meaning God
Almighty;  that she was supported by that " Big Doctor."
   Then soon began the custom of leaving money or other
presents with the child, till at last every one who visited her,
was expected to  give something.   Open house  was kept and
pilgrims came from near and far  to see the wonderful girl who
lived without food.
   When  money was  not forthcoming, presents of clothes,
finery, books,  or flowers, appear to have been substituted.  Ad-
vantage was  taken of  these presents to bedeck the child in
every variety of smartness.  At one  time  she had a victorine
about her neck and a wreath  about her hair, then again, orna-
ments and a jacket on, and  her  hair  neatly dressed with rib-
bons.  At another time she had  a silk shawl, a victorine around
her  neck, a small crucifix attached to  a  necklace, and  little
ribbons above the wrists.  She had drab gloves  on and her bed
was  nearly covered with books.
    Notwithstanding the alleged fasting, Sarah Jacob continued
to improve in health.
    And now comes an astounding feature of this most remark- 
18                   FASTING GIRLS.
able case.   The vicar became convinced that the instance was
one of real abstinence.  A little hysterical girl  twelve  years of
age,  by her perseverance  in  lying, had  actually succeeded in
inducing an educated  gentleman  to  accept  the truth of her
statements !  The following letter which  was published on the
19th of February, 1869, speaks for itself :—

                  "A  STRANGE CASE.
" To the Editor of the  Welshman.
   " Sir: Allow me to invite the attention of  your readers to a
most extraordinary case.   Sarah Jacob, a little girl twelve years
of age, and daughter of Mr. Evan Jacob,  Lletherneuadd, in this
parish, has not partaken of a single grain of any kind  of food
whatever, during the last sixteen months.   She did occasion-
ally swallow a few drops of water during the  first few months
of this period ; but now she does not  even do  that.  She still
looks pretty well in the face and continues in  the possession of
all her mental faculties.  She is  in this  and  several other re-
spects, a wonderful little girl.
   " Medical men persist in saying that the thing is quite im-
possible, but all the nearest neighbors, who are  thoroughly ac-
quainted with the circumstances  of the case, entertain no doubt
whatever of the subject, and I am myself of the same opinion.
   " Would it not be worth  their while for medical  men to
make an investigation into the nature of this strange case ? Mr.
Evan Jacob would readily admit  into his house any respectable
person who might be anxious to  watch it and  to see for him-
self. 
                    MODERN TIMES.                  19
    " I may add, that Lletherneuadd is  a farm-house about a
 mile from New Inn, in this parish.
                        " Yours faithfully,
                 "The Vicar of Llanfihangel-ar-Arth."

    The  suggestions of the vicar relative to an investigation,
 were soon after afterwards acted upon by certain gentlemen of
 the neighborhood.  A  public meeting was called and  a com-
 mittee of watchers was appointed to be constantly in  attend-
 ance in the room with Sarah Jacob, and to observe to the best
 of their ability, whether or not she took any food during the
 investigation.   It was  agreed that the watching was to con-
 tinue for a fortnight.
    Prior to the  beginning  of this watching, no  precautions
 were taken against food being conveyed into the room and con-
 cealed there.   The  parents  actually debarred  the watchers
 from touching the child's bed.  The very first element of suc-
 cess was therefore, denied, and no wonder that the whole affair
 was subsequently regarded as an  absurdity.  The  watching
 consisted in  two different men taking alternate watches from
 eight till eight.  The watching to see whether the child partook
 of food, commenced  on March 22d, and ended April  5th, 1869
 —a period of fourteen days.
   " During the above  fortnight, one of the  watchers, in turn,
 was always close to  her bed, and  in her sight day  and night,
 and at the time the bed was being made, which was  generally
 every other morning, the four persons were always present and
had  every article thoroughly examined.  The parents were
allowed to go near the bed, as  also was the little sister, six 
2o                   FASTING GIRLS.
years old, who had been Sarah's constant companion and bed-
fellow.
    " On Wednesday, April 7th,  1869, a public meeting was
held at  the  Eagle Inn, Llandyfeil, to hear  the statements  of
the parents and of the several persons who had  watched the
child during the fourteen days.   The parents briefly detailed
the condition and  symptoms  of  their daughter from the com-
mencement of her illness.  At no time during the whole four-
teen days did the  pulse  ever  reach above ninety per minute,
although exceedingly changeable, as it always had been.  The
following  evidence was received  from the  watchers, and it is
said that their statements were duly  verified on oath before a
magistrate:—
    Watcher No. 1 said : I, Evan Edward Smith, watched Sarah
Jacob for two consecutive nights, (/. e., nights  22d and  23d of
March)  at the request of Mr. H. H. Davies, surgeon.  The pa-
rents gave every facility  to investigate the matter.  I watched
her with all possible care, and found nothing to  suspect that
food or  drink was given her by foul  means.  I am quite sure
she had nothing during my watch.  I  was dismissed on account
of being suspected to doze on the second night.
    Watcher No. 2.  This watcher  watched Sarah Jacob for a
whole fortnight, and  found no indications that the child had
anything to eat or drink.  He was a college student,  Daniel
Harris Davies.
    Watcher No. 3.   John Jones,  a shopkeeper, gave  similar
evidence.  He was a decided  sceptic before he began watching,
but after twelve days  was thoroughly convinced of the fact that
nothing in the shape of  nourishment was given  to the poor 
MODERN TIMES.
21
child.  He watched every movement  of  all the inmates, and
found nothing that would lead him to suspect that any nourish
ment was given to the little girl.
   Watcher No. 4.  James Harris Davies, a medical student,
spoke in like manner,  and was perfectly  positive  that nothing
had been given to her during the fortnight he had watched
there, with the exception of three  drops of water,  once,  to
moisten her lips with.   He was  as great a  sceptic as any one
before he began watching, but as he saw nothing to confirm his
suspicions, he could conscientiously say that nothing had been
given her during his watch.
   Watcher No. 5.  Evan  Davies, of Powel Castle, who only
watched her for one day, gave similar  evidence, but as he was
a neighbour he was dismissed for a stranger.
   Watcher No. 6. Herbert Jones, watched  only one day, and
spoke in a similar manner, and  was dismissed on account of
his credulity.
   Watcher No. 7. Thomas Davies, who had been the greatesl
sceptic of all, was  strongly convinced.  He watched  Sarah Ja-
cob twelve days, and was quite positive that nothing could have
been given her  during his watch.  He watched  her with  all
possible care, and was very cautious to be in a prominent place,
where Sarah Jacob's mouth was always in sight.
   Evidence, however,  was given  which went to show that the
watching  was very imperfectly  performed ; that  occasionally
the watchers left before their time had  expired ; that intoxicat-
ing liquors were taken by them  to the house,  and that one of
them was  drunk while there.  It was also shown that the father
and  mother had free access to the bed, while the watchers were 
22                   FASTING GIRLS.
absolutely prohibited from examining it.  It is therefore with
entire justification that Dr. Fowler states that the watching
" was the greatest possible farce and mockery."
   After the report of the watchers  the  notoriety of Sarah Ja-
cob of course became still greater; crowds  came  to visit her,
and among others the Rev. Frederic Rowland Young went to see
her, and made an unsuccessful effort to cure her by laying on
of hands.  When Dr. Fowler visited her, August 30th, 1869, on
getting out at the nearest railway station, he was met by little
boys bearing  placards  with the words " Fasting Girl," and
" This is the shortest way to Llethernoryadd-ucha,"  on them.
In his letter to the Times, giving an account of his visit, Dr.
Fowler says:—
   " The first impression was most unfavorable, and to a medi-
cal man the  appearances were most suspicious.  The child was
lying on a bed decorated as a bride, having around her head a
wreath of flowers, from which was suspended a smart ribbon,
the ends of which were joined by a small bunch of flowers, after
the present  fashion of  ladies' bonnet strings.  Before her, at
proper reading distance, was an  open Welsh book, supported
by two other books on her body.  The blanket covering was
clean, tidy, and perfectly smooth.  Across the fire-place, which
was nearly opposite the foot of her bed, was an arrangement of
shelves, well stocked with English  and Welsh books, the gifts
of various visitors to the house.  The child is thirteen years of
age, and is undoubtedly very pretty.  Her face was plump, and
her cheeks and lips of a beautiful rosy color.   Her eyes were
bright and sparkling, the pupils were very dilated, in a measure
explicable by the fact of the child's head and face being shaded 
                    MODERN TIMES.                  23
 from the window-light  by the projecting side of the cupboard
 bedstead.  There was  that restless movement and  frequent
 looking  out  at  the corners of  the  eyes so characteristic of
 simulative disease.   Considering the lengthened inactivity of
 the  girl, her muscular  development was very  good,  and the
 amount  of  fat  layer  not inconsiderable.  My friend  stated
 that she looked even better than she did about a twelvemonth
 ago.  There  was a  slight perspiration  over the surface of the
 body.   The pulse was perfectly natural, as were also the sounds
 of the  lungs  and heart,  so far as  I  was enabled to make a
 stethoscopic examination.  Having received  permission to do
 this, I proceeded to make the  necessary derangement  of dress,
 when the girl went off into what the mother called a fainting fit.
 This consisted of nothing but a little and momentary hysterical
 crying and sobbing.  The color never left the lips or cheeks. The
 pulse remained of the same power.  Consciousness could have
 been but slightly diminished, inasmuch as on my then opening
 the eyelids I  perceived a distinct upward and other movement
 of the eyeballs.   Each percussion  stroke of  my examination,
 and  even the pressure of the stethoscope, produced an expres-
 sion of pain, which elicited a natural sympathy from the mother,
 and  an assertion  that a  continuance of  such examination would
bring on further fits.  On percussing the region of the stomach,
 I most distinctly  perceived the sound  of gurgling, which we
know to be caused by the admixture of air and fluid in motion.
The most positive assertion of the parents was subsequently
made that saving  a fortnightly moistening  of her lips with
cold water, the child had neither ate nor drank anything for the
last twenty-three months.  The whole region of the belly was 
24                   FASTING GIRLS.
tympanitic, and the  muscular walls of this  cavity were  tense
and drum-like—a condition not infrequently concomitant of a
well-known class of nervous disorders.  The child's intellectual
faculties and special senses were perfectly healthy.  Before her
illness she was very much devoted to religious reading.  This
devotion has lately considerably  increased.   She is a member
of the Church of England, and has been confirmed."
   Dr. Fowler then adds some other interesting particulars, all
going to show the impossibility  of the  girl's being the subject
of any exhausting disease, or of even having been continuously
in bed, as her parents asserted, for nearly two years ; and then
says :—
   " The whole case is in fact one of  simulative hysteria, in a
young girl having  the propensity to deceive very strongly de-
veloped.   Therewith may be  probably associated the power or
habit of prolonged fasting.  Both patient and mother admitted
the occasional  occurrence of  the choking sensation called
globus hystericus.
   This letter excited renewed  discussion in the newspapers,
and a second public meeting was  called to make arrangements
for a second watching.  At this meeting it was decided to bring
down from Guy's Hospital, London, several trained nurses, who
were to conduct the watching; and  the  following resolutions
were adopted, as expressing the  terms  under which the inquiry
was to be conducted:—
    i. It would be advisable, before taking any steps  in the
matter, to obtain a written legal  guarantee from the  father of
Sarah Jacob sanctioning the  necessary proceedings.   2. That
the duty of the  nurses  shall be to watch Sarah Jacob  with a 
                   MODERN TIMES.                    25
view to ascertain whether she partakes of any kind of food, and
at the end of a fortnight to report upon the  case  before the
local committee in Carmarthenshire, and, if required, at Guy's
Hospital.   3.  That two nurses  shall  be  constantly awake and
on the watch in the girl's room, night and day.   4. It would be
advisable for the nearest medical practitioner to watch the pro-
gress of the case ;  and it will be  absolutely necessary for him
to be prepared against any serious symptoms of exhaustion, super-
vening on the strict enforcement of the watching,  and to act accord-
ing to his judgment.  5.  That the room in which the girl  sleeps
shall be bared  of  all unnecessary furniture, and all possible
places in the room for the concealment of food shall be closed
and kept under the continual scrutiny of the watchers.  6. That
if considered desirable by the local medical practitioner, or by
the nurses, the bedstead on which the girl now lies shall be re-
placed by a single iron one.  7. That the  bed on  which the
parents now sleep, in  Sarah Jacob's  room, shall be given up
absolutely to the nurses.  8. That the parents be not allowed
to sleep in the  same room as the girl; that if they cannot at all
times be prevented from approaching her,  they should be pre-
viously searched (their  pockets  and other recesses of clothing
as well as the interior of their  mouths); and  that  no wetted
towels or other such articles be  allowed to be used about the
girl by the parents, or any other person  save  the nurses; that
the children of the family, and in fact every other person what-
ever (except the nurses), have similar restraints put upon them.
9. That the nurses have the sole management of preparing the
room, bed,  and patient, prior  to the commencement of the
watching.   10. That, as it is asserted  the action of the bowels 
26                   FASTING GIRLS.
and bladder is  entirely suspended, special  attention must be
directed to these organs.
   Four experienced women nurses were  accordingly deputed
from Guy's Hospital to take the entire charge of Sarah Jacob,
and to watch her for fourteen days.  They were  instructed not
to prevent her having food if she asked for it, but they were to
see that she got none without  their knowledge.   On the 9th of
December,  1869, at 4 p.m., the room was cleared of people and
the watching began.
   In the first place it was ascertained  that the girl  had re-
peated evacuations of urine, and once, at least, of foeces.
   Gradually evidences of mental  and physical disturbance be-
gan to appear.  The watch was so closely kept that no food or
drink reached the child, and she did not ask for any.
   "At 10 P. M.," to quote the language of the journal kept
by the sister nurse, " she was restless and threw her arms about.
She was  very cold, and the nurses put warm flannels on her.
This was the last day on which she passed urine.
   Thursday, December 16, 3 a. m.—She was rolling from one
side of the bed to the other.  At half-past  three she wished
the bed made, and they made it.  She  was looking very pale
and anxious.  Her eyes were sunk and her  nose pinched, and
the cheek bones were prominent.  Her  arms and hands were
cold, her feet and legs were the same.   Ann Jones, one of the
nurses, says in  her memoranda, " She was  very restless and
appeared to me to be sinking.   Her  lips were  very dry, and
her mouth seemed parched."  The peculiar smell (the starva-
tion smell) about the bed was so strong as to make  the sister
nurse quite ill. 
                   MODERN TIMES.                    27
   At 11 a. m., the vicar saw her and told the parents that the
child was  gradually failing, and  suggested to them the pro-
priety  of sending the nurses away and giving her a  chance
to obtain food, but they refused, saying that there was nothing
to do but what the nurses were doing, and that they had  seen
her quite as weak before.  The parents were urged by others
to give up the fight by sending the nurses away, but they  re-
fused on the ground that want of food had nothing to do with
the symptoms, and that she  would not eat whether the nurses
were there or not.
   Ann Jones subsequently  testified before the coroner:  " Be-
fore one and two o'clock on  Thursday afternoon (Dec. 16), she
kept talking to herself.  I could  not  understand whether she
was  speaking Welsh or English.   Up to that  time  I could un-
derstand her.  She pointed her fingers at some books ; I gave
her one, but she took no notice of it;  she was not able to read
it.   Both parents  were then told the girl was dying."
   Repeatedly they were begged to  withdraw the  nurses, and
again and again they refused, saying there was no occasion—■
that she had often been in that way, that it was not from want
of food, etc.  The girl  became weaker and weaker; low, mut-
tering delirium ensued, and on the 17th of December, 1869, at
about half-past three  o'clock, p.m., the " Welsh Fasting Girl"
died, actually starved to death, in the middle of the nineteenth
century and in one of the most Christian and civilized countries
of the world !
   But this was not  the  end.  Public opinion was much ex-
cited both  against those who had sanctioned and conducted
what appeared to  have been  a senseless  and cruel  experiment, 
 28                    FASTING GIRLS.
 and against the father and mother who had wilfully and per-
 sistently refused to allow food to be given  to the  dying child.
 A coroner's inquest was held, and the coroner appears to have
 made a very satisfactory charge to the jury after the rendition
 of the testimony.   He said there could be no doubt of the child
 having died of starvation,  and that the responsibility  rested
 with the father, who had knowingly and designedly failed  to
 cause his child to take food.  The mother was not responsible
 unless it could be shown that she had been  given food for the
 child by the father, and had withheld it from her.   It was mar-
 vellous, he said, how the father could  have made out such a
 story—such a hideous mass of nonsense, as he had under oath
 attempted to impose on the jury.
    The jury deliberated for a quarter of an hour, and then re-
 turned a verdict  of  " Died  from starvation, caused  by negli-
 gence to  induce  the  child to take food  on the  part of the
 father ; " which constituted  manslaughter.
    Evan Jacob was therefore  arrested.  But  the Secretary of
 State for the Home Department took the matter up and  deter-
 mined that the proceedings should  go farther than  the local
 authorities intended.   At first it was contemplated  to  indict
 the members of  the  General  Committee for conspiracy, but it
 was finally concluded to include only the medical gentlemen who
 had accepted the responsibility of superintending the watching,
 as well as both parents of the deceased child.
   The initial proceeding  took  place before a full bench of
magistrates, and  continued  eight days.  The Crown and the ac-
cused had  eminent counsel, and many witnesses  were exam-
ined. At the conclusion of the inquiry the presiding magistrate 
                    MODERN TIMES.                   29
 announced that  it had been determined  by the court that no
 case had been made out against the physicians, who had not
 been shown to have undertaken  any other duty than that of
 advising the nurses, and that it did  not  appear that  their ad-
 vice had been asked.   As to the father and mother the court
 had decided  to send them both for trial for manslaughter, al
 the next assizes.   In  due  time  they were arraigned, they
 pleaded not guilty, but after being defended by able counsel,
 the jury, after an absence of  about half an hour, returned with
 a verdict of guilty  against both the  prisoners, but with a re-
 commendation of the mother to the merciful consideration of
 the court, on the ground that she was under the control of her
 husband.  The man protested his innocence, and the woman
 " buried her face in her shawl and wept bitterly."
    His Lordship, in passing sentence, said:  " Prisoners at
 the bar, you  have  been found guilty of a most aggravated
 offence.  I entirely concur with the verdict which the jury have
 given, and I  shall act upon the  recommendation which they
 have presented in favor  of the female prisoner, the mother,
 though, I must say,  that I cannot but feel that it is a greater
 crime in the  mother than the father, since it is more contrary
 to the common nature of mothers, to neglect their children in
 the manner in which you have treated this  unfortunate child.
 It is contrary to the nature, even, of a father.  But I shall act
 upon the recommendation of  the jury, upon the  ground they
 have put forward, that you have been subject to the control of
your husband  more  than  has appeared from  the  evidence of
 the case.  But the offence is,  as I have said,  a serious one, on
this ground; that there cm be no doubt that both of you have 
30                   FASTING GIRLS.
persisted  in  this fraudulent  deception, upon your  neighbors,
and upon the public, and that in order to carry out that fraud-
ulent deception and to preserve yourselves from detection you
were willing to risk the  life  of that child.   The life  of that
child has been lost in that wicked experiment which you tried.
Therefore, the sentence that I shall inflict on you, Evan Jacob,
is, that you be imprisoned and  kept at hard labor for twelve
calendar months; and that upon you, Hannah Jacob,  will be
more  lenient in consideration of the  recommendation of the
jury, and it is, that you be imprisoned  and kept to hard  labor
for the period of six calendar months."
    Thus ended  one of  the most remarkable and interesting
histories of  human folly, credulity, and criminality which the
present day has  produced.   Comment upon its teaching is
scarcely necessary ; but the thoughtful reader will not fail to
perceive how important  a bearing it has upon the whole sub-
ject of belief without full and free inquiry, and that how all
the facts which science  has  gathered  during ages of  painful
labor,  go for naught, even  with  educated  persons, when
brought face to face with the false assertions of  a  hysterical
girl, and of two  ignorant and deceitful peasants.   If there is
any one thing we know, it is that there can be no force without
the metamorphosis of matter of some kind.  Here was a girl
maintaining her  weight—actually growing—her  animal heat
kept at  its due  standard, her mind active, her  heart beating,
her lungs  respiring, her skin exhaling, her limbs moving when-
ever she wished them to move, and all, as very many persons
supposed,  without the ingestion of the material by which alone
such things could be.  And  yet such  is the tendency of the 
                    S TIGMA TIZA TION.                 31
average human mind to  be deceived, that it would be perfectly
possible to re-enact in the city of New York the  whole tragedy
of Sarah  Jacob, should  ever a hysterical  girl take it into
head to do so ;  and there would not be  wanting,  even from
among those who might  read this history, individuals who would
credit  any monstrous  declarations  she might  make.   Even
now in a  little town  in Belgium,  an  ecstatic  girl is  going
through the  same performance with extraordinary additions,
and books are written by learned physicians and theologians,
with the object of  establishing the  truth of her pretensions.
To this most remarkable instance, and one other of similar
though perhaps even more remarkable characteristic, the at-
tention of the reader will presently be invited.   But in view of
these things one is almost tempted to say with Cardinal Car-
rafa, " Quandoquidempopulus decipi vult, decipiatur."
                            III.

      abstinence  from  food  with stigmatization.

   One  hundred and fifty-three persons have at one  time or
another, according to  Dr.  Imbert-Gourbeyre,* received the
stigmata ;  that is, been marked in a  miraculous manner with
the wounds received by Christ at the crucifixion.   Of these,
eight, are according to the  same authority  now  living,  and
two  assert  that   they  do  not  eat.   I  propose  to con-
sider  at some  length  the  main  points  in  the   histories
*Les Stigmatisees; Palma d'Oria, etc.  2d Edition, Paris, 1873. p. 263. 
32
FASTING GIRLS.
of  these two,  Palma d'Oria and  Louise Lateau,  and in so
doing I shall avail myself of the works of those, who are firm
believers in the miraculous interposition of God to produce the
effects, of which they are said to be the subjects.   These cases
are very little known in this country.  Instances  of  the kind
are extremely rare among practical common sense nations, like
those inhabiting the  British Isles, and their descendants in
America.  Of the whole one hundred and fifty-three cases  re-
corded  by Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre,  but one—Jane Gray—was
British,  and hers is the most doubtful case in  the list, for the
fact rests only on the testimony of one Thomas  Bourchier, an
English  minor  brother, who asserts that she had the stigmata
in the feet.  Of the remainder, the  very large majority are of
Italy, and as Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre says :
    " Quel pays fut jamais si fertile en miracles ? " *
    To the account of  a visit made to Oria for the purpose of
studying the phenomena exhibited by Palma,  made by Dr. Im-
bert-Gourbeyre, I am indebted for the following details :
    Palma, at the time of the visit  in  1871, was sixty-six years
old, hump-backed, thin, small, and with light, expressive eyes.
For several years she had not left the house, and was, on ac-
count of her sufferings, scarcely able to walk.   Occasionally,
when she felt particularly well, she  took a few steps about the
room supported by a cane.   In her youth  she had been very
strong and active.
    At the first interview, after some conversation in the course
of which Palma  declared that she had often  seen Louise La-
teau while in ecstasy,  the  doctor  directed  the conversation
                     * Op. cit., t. ii. 
                   STIGMA TIZA TION.                 3 3
towards the subject of hallucination.  While thus engaged and
seated close to Palma, he  felt her strike him  gently on  the
arm, and at the same time saw the abbe*, who had come with
him, fall on his knees.   He turned toward Palma; her eyes
were closed, her hands clasped, her mouth wide open, and on
her tongue he saw the host—the body of Christ. Immediately,
he fell on his knees also,  and worshipped it.  Palma protruded
her tongue still farther, as if she wanted to give him every  op-
portunity of seeing that the host was really there;  then she  ate
it, closed her mouth and  remained perfectly quiet on the sofa
upon which she was reclining.  It was then almost four o'clock
in the  afternoon,  the day was fading, the room was  badly lit
by a little window, high  from the floor.   The miraculous host
appeared to him to be  as white as wax, and  somewhat thick.
On account of the little light, and the short time  that this  ex-
traordinary communion lasted, he  was unable to determine
whether or not it was marked according to the  custom  of  the
church.
   In regard to this wonderful event—that is, if it be not a fact
viewed unequally—it is  further  to  be said  that Palma dis-
closed to  Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre,  that two  or three times,  the
holy element, which be it remembered is believed by the  great
majority of Christians to be the real body of Christ, was brought
to her  by the devil, and that then she refused it.   Sometimes
he had the figure of an angel, but  she knew him by the sign of
reprobation which he  wore  on his forehead—a little  horn.
Moreover she saw that the wicked creature hesitated, and was
a little embarrassed.   She intoned the Gloria Patri, and made
the sign of the  cross, and he instantly took flight and disap- 
 34                   FASTING GIRLS.
 peared.  In order to ascertain what it all meant, her confessor
 forbade her to receive  the  miraculous  communion for  eight
 days.  Hardly had that period expired when Jesus Christ him-
 self brought her the  communion.  Before giving  it to her he
 made her recite the Gloria Patri three times.   Then he said to
 her, " Have I fled  as the  demon  did ?   No.  Therefore  reas-
 sure yourself.  It is really I."
    These miraculous circumstances had been  going on for
 about two years when Dr.  Imbert-Gourbeyre made his visit  to
 Palma.   Sometimes it was brought to her by Christ, as in the
 instance  specified, or by some saint, as  St. Peter, St. Vincent
 de Paul, St. Francis d'Assisi, in  the company of  her guardian
 angel, and other saints and angels. At other times it was brought
 by priests and confessors of the olden time, long since dead,
    An Italian bishop stated, that at the  moment of the mirac-
 ulous sacrament on one occasion, he had seen the host flying
 through the air before entering Palma's mouth, but the doctor
 questioned her attendant on this  point,  and she declared that
 she had not seen that, and she  assured  him that the host was
 never seen by any one till it rested on Palma's tongue.  The
 doctor inclines to the belief  that the attendant was right, but
 he  states that nevertheless a French apostolic missionary had
 asserted that he had seen the same thing.
   Well, if the consecrated bread be really the body of Christ
that was given for the  salvation  of the world, what horrible
blasphemy to state such things of it, what vileness to believe
them, what a barefaced imputation on the reason of mar  to
spread these shocking details before him and ask him to. ac-
cept them as true of the  God he worships ! 
                   STIGMA TIZA TION.                 35
    After witnessing the communion,  Dr.  Imbert-Gourbeyre
was requested  to withdraw into the  adjoining room,  while
Palma got  ready for her other performances.  In a few min-
utes he was informed that all was in order.  One of the women
went in first and returning immediately, the others were invited
to enter.  The  stigmatization had already begun on the fore-
head.  He saw a stream of blood flowing from the left frontal
eminence along the side  of  the  nose.   A handkerchief was
given to Palma; she held it to her nose for a moment and the
haemorrhage soon stopped.  He examined the blood and found
that it did not differ in appearance, color or temperature from
ordinary blood.   He then examined the handkerchief, and be-
sides numerous rotund  spots he perceived other figures resem-
bling hearts, with  stains of blood proceeding from  them, indica-
ting the flames  of love.  All this  appeared to him to be very-
extraordinary, for though he had often seen people bleed from
the nose, he had never seen them  bleed like that.
    After this incident Palma continued the performances—ac-
tions de grace he calls  them—her  hands clasped and her eyes
closed.  In the lower  limbs, especially the  left, there  was a
tremor like a nervous trembling which was soon quieted.  Af-
ter a  few minutes she  rubbed her hands together, made the
sign of the cross  and returned naturally to the conversation.
He then examined her forehead and endeavored to ascertain
where the blood had come from.   The skin was intact without
the least opening.  She showed him above the right frontal em-
inence a hole in the cranium, from which at  a former period,
five little pieces of bone had been discharged.  The opening
was entirely covered over by the  scalp, and  he was surprised 
36                   FASTING GIRLS.
to find that there was no cicatrix.   It was  round, the end of
his index finger entered it  readily,  and it was  just such an
opening as would have been  produced by the crown of  a tre-
phine.   At the time it was made, the skin  opened  to allow of
the exit of the pieces of bone ; then  it closed without leaving
the trace of  a scar.   It was  the same  with the stigmata.
They closed at once without  there being any  marks to indicate
the place whence the blood had flowed.   This hole in the skull
had been caused by some particular circumstances that no one
was willing to reveal to him,  but  which he says are  reported in
the journal of the  directors of  this  woman, and  which will
soon be published.  Most medical men will  come  to the con-
clusion that it was due to caries  and  necrosis of the bone, of
syphilitic origin.
    During another visit Palma  told  Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre
that she had  eaten  nothing for seven years, but  that she was
obliged to drink frequently on  account of the great internal
heat, which like a fire consumed her.   She then  drank in his
presence two carafes of water  at one  time, and  the  doctor
states that "this water became so hot  in  her stomach that  it
was vomited boiling.  She  also had often  ejected from her
mouth oil, and another fluid  of a balsamic character, in which,
on standing for some time, bodies resembling the consecrated
host were formed."
    The doctor then relates  the  following details, which I give
in his own words, in further  illustration of the character of his
mental  organization and of the pretensions put forth by the
woman, whose word seems to have been sufficient to convince
him of anything at all, no matter how preposterous. Four years 
STIGMA TIZA TION.
37
previously he had been so unfortunate as to lose by death his
eldest child:
   " A  year  after  his death, I had  met a  woman of great
renown for piety, and who was even regarded as a receiver of
celestial  communications.  I had commended my poor  Joseph
to her.   Some  time after she  assured me that my son was
saved, and that he was in paradise.  She declared that in a vision
she had seen  him near our Lord; he was happy.  Various cir-
cumstances, which it is useless to mention here, had caused me
to believe  in the truth of this asserted revelation.  Being in
Oria, I wished to have as much certainty as  possible in regard
to the matter, and as I knew that Palma was in spiritual com-
munication with many pious souls scattered over the earth, I
said to her in the course  of  our conversation, ' tell me,  Palma,
do you  know  M. —;— de X----,' giving her  the baptismal
name of  the woman in question.  ' No  sir,'  she  answered. " I
then related to  her my history in detail, taking care not to ask
her opinion  in advance, although I felt sure that she would
explain the thing to me.  She listened with  the utmost atten"
tion to  the  superioress  who translated my  words, and when
Mother Becaud came to say that the woman had had a vision of
my son, and that he was in paradise, Palma stretched out her
arm in a solemn manner as  a sign of negative, and said to me,
" ' He is saved, but he is still in purgatory.' "
   ' Is it possible ? Palma,' I cried, profoundly moved : ' Since you
tell me this, you are in conscience bound to get him out of that
place of  expiation as soon as possible, and I commend him im-
mediately to your prayers.'
    " * Yes, sir,' she said, ' I will pray for him, and when I am 
3g                  . FASTING GIRLS.
sure of his deliverance, I will send you word by Father  de
Pace.
  " The following morning at my visit I again commended my
poor child to  Palma, and on the following Friday evening  on
taking leave of her, I asked if she had prayed that morning for
my son,' No sir,' she answered.  ' I will only do so on the day  of
All Saints.'  ' Then ' said  I to Palma, ' will you allow madame
the superioress to  take the answer.'  ' Very willingly said the
seeress.'  On the  7th of November, I received at Nice the
following letter :

" Sir,
    "' I have  fulfilled the promise which  I  made to you  in
accordance  with your wish to go to Palma on All Saints Day,
in order to ascertain whether or not your wishes in  regard  to
your son had been granted.   That good soul  assured me twice
that he had gone to heaven that very morning, God be praised
a thousand times!
   " ' Thus sir, I have done what I  could for your consolation.
                  "' I have the honor to be, etc.
                              "' Sister Marie Becaud.'

    " This letter was post marked at Oria,  November 2d."
    I should not venture to insult the intelligence of the reader
 with these idiotic details  but for the reasons stated, and addi-
 tionally, that they carry conviction with them  to  thousands  of
 minds, honest doubtless, but which are accustomed to grovel
 in superstition, and falsehood, which they are unable to test  by
 right standards.
    A phase in Palma's spiritual pathology has been alluded to
 cursorily, but  has not yet been  considered  with the  fulness 
                   STIGMA TIZA TION.                  39
proper in connection with stigmatization, and that is the occur
rence of haemorrhagic spots on various parts of her body, and
which she so managed  as  to convey the idea that they were
symbolical of various holy  things.   On  the  back of her  hand
she  convinced  Dr.  Imbert-Gourbeyre  that  she bled in the
shape  of the cross, and he gives  a wood-cut representing a
cross on  the dorsum  of  the hand,  a little above the space be-
tween  the  first  and second  fingers.  This  is  surrounded  by
other rectilinear figures.  On her breast and back, other figures
were obtained  by placing  handkerchiefs on the parts.  The
doctor thus  procured several mementoes  of his visit, in the
shape of pieces of linen  stained with spots  of blood somewhat
resembling  hearts, with flames coming out  of  them,  suns,
roses, crosses, etc.  He gives several plates in his book repre-
senting these figures, of the reality of the miraculous formation
of which he has not the slightest doubt.
  Another phenomenon has also been mentioned incidentally,
and  that is the intense heat which Palma declared she felt, and
which  the  doctor refers to  as  the  " divine fire."   He had
brought with him from  Paris, a thermometer to  use  in deter-
mining  the  extraordinary  temperature of  this  fire.   He
examined her with this  instrument while she felt this divine
fire,  but failed to find any abnormal increase ; her pulse at the
time was 72.  " I made this experiment," he says, " to satisfy
my scientific conscience, [God save the mark !] but I ought to
say that I was  ashamed of myself for presuming to  measure
this  divine fire by such an instrument."  He is right, science is
not for him, or those like him.
   On one occasion while  Palma was in  ecstasy, Antonietta, 
40                   FASTING GIRLS.
who was near her, laid  bare her chest a little, and cried with
enthusiasm,  "she is burning!"  Dr.  Imbert-Gourbeyre  ap-
proached  and  smelt something like  the  burning  of linen.
The dress was opened and her chemise was found to be burnt
on  the left side just over the collar bone, and immediately be-
low this, scorched in the shape of  " a magnificent emblem rep-
resenting a  monstrance.  The fire was invisible, but its traces
were very evident."
    In a note he states that it was affirmed that Palma's  tem-
perature on similar occasions had reached ioo° centigrade, (2120
Farenheit) a fact which he does not doubt,  although his ther-
mometer did not show it. "Thather chemise," he says, " burnt
by invisible fire, which escaped the thermometer, was more ex-
traordinary than if  the instrument had indicated a temperature
of ioo°."
    I shall not  stop  now to  comment further on the  circum-
stances detailed by Dr. Imbert-Gourbeyre, and of which I have
cited but a small part.  I will only say at present that science
and common sense would conclude  in  regard to Palma d'Oria,
    1 st.  That she had probably at a  former period  contracted
syphilis.
    2d. That she was strongly hysterical.
    3d. That she was the  subject of purpura haemorrhagica.
    4th.  That she was a most unmitigated humbug and liar.
    And now we come to the consideration of a case of stigmati-
zation which has greatly stirred both the  theological and the
scientific world of Europe—that of  Louise Lateau—and here
again I shall draw largely, though by no means exclusively, from 
STIGMA TIZA TION.
41
 the works of the believers in the miraculous production of the
 phenomena manifested.*
    Louise Lateau was born at Bois-d'Haine, a small village in
 Belgium, on the 30th of January, 1850.   She was reared in  the
 utmost poverty, was chlorotic, and did not menstruate till she was
 eighteen years old.  She  loved solitude and silence, and when
 not engaged in work—and she does not appear to have labored
 much—she spent her time in meditation and prayer.   She was
 subject to  paroxysms of ecstasy, during which, as many other
 ecstasies, she spoke very edifying things, of charity, poverty, and
 the priesthood.   She  saw St. Ursula, St. Roch, St. Theresa,
 and the Holy Virgin.   Persons who saw her in these states de-
 clared that, while tying on the bed, her whole body was  raised
 up more than a foot high, the heels alone being in contact with
 the bed.
    The stigmatization ensued very soon after these seizures.
 On a Friday she bled from the left side  of her chest.   On the

   * For the theological view of this remarkable case the reader is referred
 to the following works, a part only of those written in support of her pre-
 tensions. " Louise Lateau de Bois-d'Haine, sa vie, ses extases, ses stigmates,"
 etude Medicale, par le  Dr. Lefebvre, Louvain 1873.  "  Les stigmatistes
 Louise Lateau, etc.," par le Docteur A. Imbert-Gourbeyre Paris, 1873. " Bio-
 graphie de Louise  Lateau" par H. Van Looy, Tournai, Paris and Leipzig
 1874. " Louise Lateau de Bois d'Haine etc." par le  Dr. A. Rohling, Paris,
 1874. "Louise Lateau,ihr Wunderleben u.s.w." Von Paul  Majunke, Berlin,
 1875-
   Among the treatises in which the miracle is denied, and the phenomena at-
 tributed  to either disease or fraud are ;" Louise Lateau ; Rapport Medicale
 sur la stigmatisee de Bois-d'Haine, fait a I'academie royale  de  medecine
 Belgique, par le Dr. Warlomont, Bruxelles and  Paris, 1875.  " Science et
 miracle, Louise Lateau,  ou la stigmatisee Beige" par le Dr. Bourneville,
 Paris, 1875.  " Les Miracles ; " par M. Virchow, Revue des cours scienti-
fiques, January 23rd 1875. 
42                   FASTING GIRLS.
following Friday this flow was renewed, and in addition, blood
escaped from the dorsal surfaces of both feet; and on the third
Friday, not only did she bleed from the side and  feet, but also
from the dorsal and palmar surface of both hands.  Every suc-
ceeding Friday the blood flowed from these places, and finally
other points of exit were established on the forehead and be-
tween the shoulders.
   At first these  bleedings only took  place at night, but after
two or three months they occurred in the daytime, and were ac-
companied by paroxysms of  ecstasy, during which she was in-
sensible to all external impressions, and acted the passion of
Jesus and the crucifixion.
   M. Warlomont, being commissioned by the Royal Academy
of Medicine of Belgium to examine Louise Lateau, went to her
house, accompanied by several friends, and made a careful ex-
amination of her person.   At that time, Friday morning at six
o'clock, the blood was flowing freely from all the stigmata.   In
a few moments the sacrament would  be  brought to her,   and
then the second act of the drama would begin.  The scene that
followed can be best  described in M. Warlomont's own words :
   "It-is a quarter-past six.  'Here comes the communion,'
said M. Niels [a priest],' kneel down.'  Louise fell on her knees
on the floor, closed her eyes and crossed her  hands,  on which
the communion-cloth was extended.  A priest, followed by sev-
eral acolytes, entered;  the penitent put out her tongue, receiv-
ed the holy wafer, and then remained immovable in the attitude
of prayer.
    We observed her with  more care than seemed to have been
hitherto given to her at similar periods.   Some thought  that 
                 '  STIGMATIZATION.                  43
she was simply in a state of meditation, from which  she would
emerge in the course of half an hour or so.  But it  was a mis-
take.  Having taken the communion, the penitent went into a
special state.  Her  immobility was that of a statue, her eyes
were closed ; on raising the eyelids the pupils were seen to be
largely dilated, immovable, and apparently insensible to  light.
Strong pressure made upon the parts in the vicinity  of the stig-
mata caused no sensation of pain, although a few  moments be-
fore they  were exquisitely tender.  Pricking the skin gave no
evidence of the slightest sensibility.  A limb, on being raised,
offered  no resistance, and sank slowly back to its  former po-
sition.  Anaesthesia was complete, unless the cornea remained
still impressionable.  The pulse had fallen from  120 to 100
pulsations.  At a given moment  I raised one of the eyelids, and
M. Verriest quickly touched the cornea.  Louise at  once seem-
ed to recover herself from a sound sleep, arose and walked to a
chair, upon which she seated herself.   'This time,'  I said, 'we
have wakened her.'   ' No,' said M. Niels, looking at his watch,
' it was time for her to awake.' "
   She remained conscious; the blood still continued to  flow ;
the anaesthesia had ceased, her pulse  rose  to  120, and at the
end of half an hour she was  herself.  " Our  first visit ended
here.  At half-past eleven we made another.  The  poor child
had resumed her attitude  of  extreme suffering, against which
she contended with all the energy that remained to her.  The
wounds in the hands still continued to bleed.  M. Verriest aus-
cultated with care the lungs, heart, and great vessels, and found
the bruit de souffle, which he had  detected in the morning at the
apex  of  the  heart  and over  the  carotids.   The handle of a 
44                   FASTING GIRLS.
spoon pressed against the velum, the base of the tongue, and
the pharynx, provoked no effort at vomiting.   The glasses of
our spectacles, as they came in contact with  the air expired,
were covered with vapor.  As  the  patient appeared to  suffer
from our presence, we went away.
   " We made our third visit at two o'clock.   There were still
fifteen minutes before the beginning of the ecstatic crisis, which
always took place punctually at a quarter past two and ended
at about half past four.  The pupils at this time  were  slightly
contracted, the eyelids were almost entirely closed; the eyes,
looking at nothing, were veiled from our view.   We tried in
vain  to attract her attention ; her mind was otherwise engaged,
and her pains were evidently becoming more  intense.   At ex-
actly a quarter past two her eyes  became fixed  in a direction
above and to the right.  The ecstacy had  begun.
   "The time  had  now come to  introduce  those who were
prompted by curiosity.  This  could now be  done without in-
convenience, for the ecstatic, for the ensuing  two  hours, would
be lost to the appreciation  of  what might be passing around
her.  The room crowded, could hold  about  ten persons,  but
enough were  allowed to enter to  make the total twenty-five.
These placed themselves in two ranks, of which  the front one
kneeling, allowed the rear ones to  see all that was going  on
All this was  done  under the  direction M. le Cure*, who took
every pains to give  us a good view  of what was  going to
happen.
   " Louise  was seated on the edge of  her  chair; her body,
inclined forward, seemed to wish to follow the direction of  her
eyes, which did not  look, but were fixed on vacancy.  Her 
                    STIGMATIZATION.                  45 ■
eyes were opened  to  their fullest extent, of a dull, lustreless
appearance, turned above and to the right, and of an absolute
immobility.  A few workings of  the  lids were now observed
and became more  frequent if the eyelids were touched.  The
pupils,  largely dilated, showed very little  sensibility to light,
and all that remained of vision  was shown by slight winking
when the hand was suddenly brought close  to the eyes.  The
whole face lacked expression.  At  certain  moments, either
spontaneously  or  as  a consequence of divers provocations, a
light smile, to which the muscles of the face generally did  not
contribute, wandered  over her  lips.   Then  the  face  resumed
its primitive  expression, and thus she  remained for the half-
hour which constituted the ' first station.'
    " The ' second  station ' was that  of genuflection.   It had
failed at one time, but had again appeared.   The young girl
fell on her knees, clasped her hands, and remained for about a
quarter of an hour in  the attitude of contemplation.   Then she
arose and again resumed her sitting posture.
    " The ' third station' began  at three o'clock.  Louise in-
clined herself  a little forward, raised  her body slowly,  and
then  extended herself at full  length, face  downward, on the
floor.  There was  neither rigidity nor  extreme  precipitation;
nothing in fact, calculated to  produce injuries.  The knees
first supported  her body, then it  rested  on these and the
elbows, and finally her face was brought in actual close contact
with the tiled floor.  At first the head rested on the left arm,
but very soon the patient made a quick and sudden movement,
and the arms were extended from the  body in the form of a
cross.  At the same  time the feet were brought together so 
46                   FASTING GIRLS.
that the dorsum of the right was in contact with the sole of the
left foot.  This  position did not vary for an hour and a half.
When the end of the crisis approached, the  arms were brought
close to the sides of the body, then suddenly the poor girl rose
to her knees, her face turns to the wall, her cheeks become
colored, her eyes have regained their expression, her counte-
nance expands, and the ecstasy is at an end."
   Further particulars are  given, and an  apparatus was con-
structed and applied to Louise's hand and arm so as to pre-
vent any external excitation of  the  haemorrhage.  It was ap-
parently shown that there  was no such  interference, for the
blood began to flow at the usual time on Friday.
   In addition to the stigmata and the paroxysms of ecstasy,
Louise declared that she did not sleep, had eaten or drank
nothing for four years, had  had no fecal evacuation for three
years and a half, and that the urine was entirely suppressed.
   M. Warlomont examined the blood and products of respira-
tion chemically, and satisfied himself of  their normal  charac-
ter, except that the former contained an excessive  amount of
white corpuscles.
   When  being closely interrogated, Louise admitted that,
though she did not sleep, she had short periods of forgetfulness
at night.   On M. Warlomont suddenly opening a cupboard in
her room, he found it  to contain fruit and bread, and her cham-
ber communicated  directly with  a yard  at  the  back  of the
house.   It  was  therefore perfectly possible for her to have
slept, eaten, defecated, and urinated,  without any one knowing
that she did so.
   The conclusions arrived at by M. Warlomont were, that the 
                   STIGMA TIZA TION.                  4 7
stigmatisations and ecstasies of Louise Lateau were real and to
be  explained -upon well-known physiological and pathological
principles, that she " worked, and dispensed heat, that she lost
every Friday a certain quantity of blood  by the  stigmata, that
the air she expired contained the vapor of water  and carbonic
acid, that her weight had not  materially altered  since she had
come under  observation.   She consumes carbon and it is not
from  her own body that she  gets it.  Where does  she get it
from ?   Physiology answers, ' She eats.' "
    Relative  to the assumed abstinence in the cases of  Palma
d'Oria, Louise Lateau and other subjects of ecstasy and stigma-
ta, it is  not  necessary, in  view of the remarks  already made
on this  subject in a previous  chapter, to  devote further  con-
sideration to it here.  The  conclusion  arrived at by M. Warlo-
mont is the only one which science can tolerate.   Should Lou-
ise Lateau or Palma d'Oria ever be subjected to as close watch-
ing as was the poor little Welsh  Fasting  Girl, Sarah Jacob, it
will certainly terminate as badly for them  as for her,  unless
they yield.to the demands of nature and  take the food which
the organism requires. 
48
FASTING GIRLS.
                            IV.
                   THE BROOKLYN CASE.
  For several years past there have  been rumors more or less
definite in character that a  young lady in  Brooklyn was not
only living without food, but was possessed of some mysterious
faculty by which she could fortell events, read communications
without the aid of  the eyes, and accurately  describe occur-
rences  in distant places, through clairvoyance or whatever other
name may be applied to the influence.
  Finally, in the New York Herald of  October 20th,  1878,
appeared an account, headed  " Life without Food.  An Invalid
Lady who for fourteen years  has  lived without nourishment."
As this account is apparently authentic, and  as the statements
made have never been contradicted, I do not hesitate to  quote
from it.  Some of  the letters  which  have appeared in response
to a proposition I offered, and to which fuller reference will
presently be made, have accused me of dragging the young lady
before the public.   It  will be seen, however, that her friends
and  physicians are responsible for all the publicity given  to the
case.
  Leaving out  of  consideration  for  the present the alleged
marvelous endowments of this young lady, as regards  seeing
without her eyes, second sight, etc., I quote from the Herald
the  essential points relative  to her  clinical history  and absti-
nence  from food : 
                  THE BROOKLYN CASE.               49
  " In a  modest, secluded  house at the  corner of Myrtle
Avenue and  Downing Street, Brooklyn, lives  an invalid  lady
afflicted with paralysis, with a history so remarkable and extra-
ordinary that, notwithstanding it  is vouched for by physicians
of standing, it is almost incredible.  It is claimed that  for  a
period of nearly fourteen years she has lived absolutely without
food or nourishment of any kind.   The case has been kept by
the family of the patient a well guarded secret, it having led
them to a strict seclusion as  the only means of protection
against the visits of the curious and incredulous.
  " The name of the remarkable person is Miss Mollie Fancher.
To the half  dozen medical  gentlemen who have  seen and at-
tended her, her  case  is inexplicable.   To learn the  history of
the strange case a Herald reporter yesterday called on several
persons familiar with the facts.   The  first person seen was Dr.
Ormiston, of  No.  74 Hanson  Place, Brooklyn, who  attended
her.   He  said :—' It  seems incredible, but  from everything  I
can learn Mollie Fancher never eats.  The elder Miss Fancher,
her aunt, who takes care of her, is a lady of  the highest intelli-
gence.  She  was  at one time  quite  wealthy, and she has  at
present a comfortable income.  I have every reason to believe
that her statements  are  in  every detail reliable.   During  a
dozen visits to the sick chamber I  have never detected evidence
of the  patient having eaten a  morsel."
  After interviewing  a lady intimate with  the family, the re-
porter sought out Dr. Speir, the  attending physician of the
patient, and thus details his experience with  that gentleman :
  " Dr. Speir was found in  his comfortable little office, and the
errand of the writer made known :— 
50                   FASTING GIRLS.
  " ' Is it true, Doctor, that a patient of yours has lived for four-
teen years without taking food ?'
  " ' If you refer to Miss Fancher, yes.  She became my patient
in 1864.  Her case is a most remarkable one.'
  " ' But has she eaten nothing during all these years ?"
  " ' I can safely say she has not.'
  " ' Are the family also willing to vouch for the truth  of this
extraordinary statement ?'
  " ' You will find them very reticent to newspaper men and to
strangers generally.   I do not believe any food—that is, solids
—ever passed the woman's  lips  since her  attack of  paralysis,
consequent upon her mishap.  As for an occasional  teaspoon-
ful of water or milk,  I sometimes force  her to take it by  using
an  instrument to pry open her mouth, but that is  painful to
her.  As early as 1865 I endeavored to sustain life in this way,
for I feared that, in  obedience to the universal  law of  nature,
she would die of gradual  inanition or  exhaustion, which I
thought would sooner or  later ensue ;  but I was  mistaken.
The case knocks the bottom out of all existing medical theo-
ries, and is,  in a word, miraculous.'
   " ' Did you ever,' asked the reporter, ' make an experiment
to satisfy your professional accuracy in regard to  her  absti-
nence ?'
   " ' Several times I have given her emetics on  purpose to dis-
cover 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, with-
out being announced, but have always found her the  same, and 
                  THE BROOKL YN CA SE.               51

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 va-
rious  statements given by half a dozen friends of the family to
the Herald reporter.  Interwoven  with it is a thread  of ro-
mance, 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 
52                     FASTING GIRLS.
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 suf-
ferer 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 be-
lieved  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 restora-
tives, 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 ren-
dering 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 
                  THE BROOKLYN CASE.                53
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, re-
quiring 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 " clair-
voyant," or "second-sight" power.  Relative to her abstinence
from food, I quote the following conversation between  the re-
porter 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 con-
stantly 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 im-
portance as to take many physicians to see it ?'
  " ' I have, and it has excited very  much of attention.  I have
letters  about it from  far and near, and  the medical journals
have asked for information.' "
  And this with Dr. Ormiston :
  " Dr.  Robert  Ormiston, who has been one of  Miss Fancher's
physicians from the first, who has seen her constantly  in all the
different conditions of her system, said yesterday that he was 
54                    FASTING GIRLS.
convinced that there could be no  deception.  He could find
no motive for it, and he did not believe that she had attempted
it.  As% to her not  partaking of food, he had with Dr. Speir
made tests that satisfied him that she ate no more than she pre-
tended to, and in the aggregate  it had not, in all these years,
amounted to more than the amount eaten at a single meal by a
healthy man.   Dr.  Ormiston narrated many  curious incidents
of the girl's illness, and verified the facts of her physical condi-
tion as narrated elsewhere."
   In order that no injustice may be done to these gentlemen,
I quote the following from the Sun of November 26th :
   "Dr. R.  Fleet  Speir, one  of Miss Fancher's physicians,
smiled last evening when the Sun reporter  asked him what he
thought of Dr. Hammond's opinions on the case.   ' I proba-
bly have just  as high an opinion of Dr. Hammond's opinions
as Dr. Hammond has of mine,' he said.  ' My opinion on the
case of Miss Fancher I have always refused to give to any one.
When I first  took  the case, years ago, I told the family that I
would not give them an opinion on it; that I would do what
I could with it, and that I hoped to bring about a cure.   I do
not believe in clairvoyance or second sight, or anything of the
kind.  I think I stand with the most rigid school on that sub-
ject.'
     But  do you think Miss  Fancher deceives or endeavors
to?'
   " The Doctor smiled again.  ' Now I do not want you to in-
terview me on that.  My theory has along been to do nothing
to irritate my patient;  I humored her, and have endeavored in
that way to get her confidence, to get complete  control of her, 
                  THE BROOKLYN CASE.               55
if possible.  In that way I may get her mind diverted, and by
and by get her out of bed.   I have hoped to see her cured.  I
do  not see what earthly good a scientific investigation would
do  her.  On the contrary, it would harm her.  Put a relay of
physicians to  watch her, and she would  undoubtedly do her
best to beat them.   She  would hold out against them, and
likely as not die.'
  " Dr. Robert Ormiston said that he thought that the Brooklyn
physicians knew quite  as much  about the case  as their New
'York brethren, and that their opinions were of as much weight.
' It has become a most  interesting case from a medical stand-
point, because during her long illness, she has  gone through all
the different phases of hysteria that have heretofore been ob-
served in  many different cases.   I  think I am correct in this
statement.'"
   From all that can be ascertained therefore, it appears 'that
the young lady in  question  received a  severe  injury to  the
spinal cord, in consequence of  which she  became paralyzed in
the lower extremities, in which members  contractions  also took
place.  It is probable also that the great sympathetic nerve and
brain were involved in the  injury.
   Confined to her bed,  her  bodily temperature being  low, and
passing a good of her time in trances or periods of insensibility,
the requirements of the system as regarded food would neces-
sarily be limited.  But  this is the most that can be said.  She
did breathe, her heart did beat,  she required some bodily heat,
and the various other functions of her organism could not have
been maintained without the expenditure of matter of some kind.
Durir g abstinence  from food the body itself  is consumed for 
56                   FASTING GIRLS.
these purposes,  and there being no renovation,  no supplies
from  without, it loses  weight with  every instant of  time until
death finally ensues.   An emaciated person can  withstand this
drain less effectually than one who is stout and fat.
  Again, it is said that the food taken by Miss Fancher was at
once rejected.  That it was all rejected, is in the highest  de-
gree improbable ; a  portion remained, and this portion, small
as it was, did good service when very little was required.
  Another point: that Miss Fancher was hysterical admits of
no doubt.  Hysteria is a disease as much in some cases beyond
the control of the patient as  inflammation of the brain or any
other disease.  A proclivity to simulation and deception is just
as much a symptom of hysteria as pain is of pleurisy.   To say,
therefore, that she  simulated  abstinence and deceived  us  to
the quantity of food she took, is no imputation on  her honesty,
or questioning her possession of as high a degree of honor and
trust, as can be claimed  by any one.   Other women naturally
as moral  as  she, have under  the influence of hysteria perpet-
rated the grossest deceptions, and they are not unfrequently
manifested in the very  same way that  hers apparently are.
Her case is by no means an isolated one ; it is not such as has
never been seen before ;  it does not  " knock  the bottom out of
all  existing medical theories, and is in a word miraculous," as
one  of  the physicians is reported  to have said.   On  the con-
trary, similar ones are often met with as  we have seen, and the
following which I quote from Miklingen,* is  so like it  in many
respects, that the two might have been formed after a common
  * Curiosities of Medical Experience, London, 1837, Vol. I., page 269,
article, Abstinence. 
                 THE BROOKL YN CA SE.               5 7
model, as in fact they were, just as two or more cases of pneu-
monia follow a well defined type.
  "Another wonderful instance  of the same  kind  is that  of
Janet McLeod, published by Dr. McKenzie.  She was at the
time thirty-three years of age, unmarried, and from the age of
fifteen had  had various  attacks  of epilepsy, which had  pro-
duced so rigid a lock-jaw that  her mouth  could  rarely be
forced open by any contrivance ; she  had  lost very nearly the
power of speech and deglutition,  and with  this all  desire to eat
or drink.  Her lower limbs were  contracted towards her body ;
she was entirely confined to her bed, and had periodical dis-
charges of blood from the lungs,  which were chiefly thrown out
by the nostrils.  During  a  few intervals of relaxation  she was
prevailed upon with great difficulty to put a few  crumbs of
bread comminuted in the hand, into her mouth, together with a
little water sucked from  her  one hand, and, in one or two in-
stances, a little gruel, but  even  in these  attempts almost the
whole was rejected.  On  two occasions also, after  a total absti-
nence of many months,  she made  signs of wishing to drink
some water, which was immediately procured for her.  On the
first trial the whole seemed to be returned  from the mouth, but
she was greatly refreshed in having it rubbed upon  the throat.
On the second occasion she drank off a pint at once, but could
not be prevailed upon  to drink  any more, although her father
had now fixed a wedge between  her teeth.   With these excep-
tions, however, she  seemed to  have passed upwards of  four
years without either  liquids or solids  of any kind, or  even an
appearance of swallowing ;  she lay for the  most part like a log
of wood, with a pulse  scarcely perceptible for feebleness, but 
58                   FASTING GIRLS.
distinct and regular.  Her countenance was  clear and  pretty
fresh ;  her features neither  disfigured  nor sunk;  her bosom
round and prominent, and her limbs not emaciated.   Dr. Mc-
Kenzie watched her, with occasional visits, for  eight or nine
years, at the close of which  period  she seemed  to be a little
improved."
  This account, like that given of Miss Fancher, tells us noth-
ing definite in  regard to the fasting abilities of the young wo-
man.   It simply, with the other, may be accepted as indicating
that hysterical  women are able  to  go  for comparatively long
periods without food, and that fact we already knew.  It will
be observed that is is stated  that she "seemed" to go four years
without food or drink.
  In regard to  Miss  Fancher, the evidence is  a  little conflict-
ing.  First we have Dr.  Spier reported  as saying, in  answer to
a question as to her having lived fourteen years*without food :
    ' Yes, she became my patient in 1864.  Her case is a most
remarkable one.'
     But has she eaten nothing during  all these years ? '
  " I can safely say she has  not.' "
  This in the Herald.
  But about a month afterward we  find the following conver-
sation, reported as  taking place between the same  physician
and another reporter, this time of the Sun :
    "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 con-
stantly with her for thirteen years.   She may have taken food
in my absence  '" 
                       INANITION.                     59
  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.
                            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 mir-
acle."  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.
  The body is a machine constructed for the purpose of work-
ing.  The kinds of work which the  body of a man or woman
does are many.  Every act of perception or sensation, is an act
of work ; so is  every thought, every emotion, every volition.
The action of the heart or lungs in the circulation and respira-
tion, the  evolution of the animal heat, the various functions of 
6o
FASTING GIRLS.
secretion and excretion, digestion, motion, speech, etc., are all
so many kinds of work.  Now as regards work, it is well known
that for its  due performance force is required, and it is equally
well known that for the development of force, matter that can
be metamorphosed is necessary.   The engine may be perfect,
the water may be in the boiler, but unless, there be force in the
form of heat there will be no steam ; and there will be no heat
unless there be fuel in a state cf combustion.
  The human body differs from any other machine in  the fact
that it uses its fuel in great part indirectly; only in fact after it
has been assimulated and converted into tissues of various
kinds.   Thus when a muscle contracts, it  is the muscle itself
which is consumed; when a thought is conceived it is the brain
which provides the force ;  when  an  emotion is experienced, it
is again the brain which is decomposed.  The body, therefore,
lives by the death of its own substance.   It is true, some kinds
of food  such as alchohol, tea  and coffee, and perhaps some
others do  not  require  to go farther than the  blood to  be
burned, but  these are mainly heat-producing, and not tissue-
producing  substances.  But whether matter be consumed  di-
rectly or indirectly, all bodily force results from its decomposi-
tion, and without this destruction of matter the body would be
absolutely  incapable of a single  functional action of any kind
whatever, and its temperature like that  of the  so-called cold-
blooded animals would be that of the surrounding medium, the
atmosphere.
   The quantity of food required by the system varies like  the
 demands of  other machines in accordance with the amount of
 work which is to be performed.  A plowman, other things being 
INANITION.
61
equal, consumes more than a watchmaker; just as a locomotive
burns more fuel than the little engine that  runs  a sewing ma-
chine ; the strong able-bodied active man, one who works his
brains and muscles up to their full  power,  eats more than the
weak, emaciated and inactive girl, who  passes all her time in
the recumbent position in bed ; and the latter will, other things
being  equal,  endure  for a longer period entire abstinence  from
food.  A little food with such  a one  goes  a great way, the
demands  of  the  system are at  their minimum, and hence a
mouthful of  bread, or a little tea and toast taken at long  in-
tervals, suffices for the  supply of all, or a great  portion of the
waste of the  body.   With such a person there is not much in-
tense thought, there  is little or no  muscular action,  the pulsa-
tions of the heart do not require to be  of  much force, the  re-
spiration is feeble, digestion  is at its lowest point, there are no
great demands for animal heat, and in  fact if the temperature
of the atmosphere of the room in which such a person lies, be
kept high, the function of calorification  may be almost nothing.
Still there must be some food taken.  The body, can to a certain
extent, be used up in supplying the force required for  the several
functions without the necessity for an immediate restoration of
its tissues, but there is a limit to this, beyond which it is certain
death to go.
   Chossat * has determined this point very accurately by many
experiments  performed  upon  doves,  pigeons,  Guinea  pigs,
rabbits, etc.   He found that as  a mean result, death ensued
when the body lost four-tenths of its original weight.  For in-
stance, a body weighing one  hundred pounds, could  endure the
  * Recherches experimentales sur l'inanition.  Paris 1843, p.  20. 
62
FASTING GIRLS.
loss of forty pounds without death necessarily following.  Five-
tenths or one-half appeared to be the extreme loss of weight in
inanition which the body could endure without death resulting.
  In addition to the loss of weight the temperature fell rapidly,
the action of the heart was lessened, the number  and depth of
the respirations was diminished, and the excretions gradually
became smaller in amount.
  Experiments such as those  of  Chossat on the lower animals,
cannot of course be instituted on the human subject, neverthe-
less nature sometimes performs experiments for us which are
not without valuable results ; and accidents of  various kinds,
have also given us important data.
  On the 19th of March, 1755, twenty-two persons living in the
Alpine village of Bergemolletta, in Piedmont, were  buried in
their houses by an  avalanche or whirlwind of snow.  The space
covered was about two hundred and seventy feet in length, sixty in
breath, and the snow was over forty-two feet in depth. Notwith-
standing all the efforts made by the survivors it was impossible
to extricate the buried persons till the 18th of April following.
All were dead  except  three women, who, having found  some
hay, fed a goat with it, and thus obtained from  this animal  a
pint of milk daily, on which they had managed to sustain life for
a month.*
  In Belguim in the year 1683,  four colliers were confined in
a coal pit for twenty-four days without anything to eat.  On the
twenty-fifth day they were taken out.  In all that time they had
lived on nothing but a little water, which flowed from the walls
of the prison in which they were immured.f
  * Universal Magazine, Vol. XXXVI, p. 250.
  f Abridged Philosophical Transaction, Vol. Ill, p. in. 
                       INANITION.                      63
  A case is mentioned by  Fodere*  on the authority of M.
Chaussier, in which some workmen were taken out alive  after
having been confined for fourteen days in a  cold  damp vault.
When released at the end of  the time mentioned, their pulses
were slow and weak, their animal heat greatly reduced, and re-
spiration barely perceptible.  Fodere ascribes their long exist-
ence without either food or drink, to the fact that the  atmos-
phere of the vault was exceedingly humid, and that the moisture
was absorbed-into their bodies, taking the place  of water in-
gested into the stomach.
   In  another case  reported by Dr. Straus, f a man sixty-five
years of age, was extracted alive from a coal  mine, in which he
had been imprisoned for twenty-three days.   During the first
ten days he had a little dirty water, but  for the  last  thirteen
days nothing whatever.   When taken out he  was in a condition
of great weakness and  emaciation  and died  after three  days,
notwithstanding all efforts  made to preserve his life.
   Cases of prolonged abstinence often occur among the insane,
who, under the influence of  delusions, or in  order  to  destroy
their lives  refuse all food.  Dr. Willan relates the case of  a
young man, who, through delusions, refused all food but a little
orange juice, and who lived for sixty days on this  alone.
   Of course such persons, if under the observation of a phy-
sician,  could be fed forcibly,  but through  the  ignorance of
friends  or relatives it not unfrequently happens  that medical
aid is not invoked in time, and  serious symptoms, or even  death
itself,  may result.   The time  at  which this last termination
  * Traite de medicine legale et d'hygiene publique, Paris 1813, t. II, p. 285.
  f Medical Gazette, Vol. XVII, p. 389. 
  64                   FASTING GIRLS.
  ensues varies according to the  kind of insanity with which the
  patient is affected.  A general paralytic deprived of all  food
  dies sooner than a healthy person.   An insane person  suffering
  from acute mania also resists inanition badly, but one the  sub-
  ject of  melancholia often  endures the total  deprivation of ali-
  ment for a long time.  Esquirol*  cites  the case of a  melan-
  cholic who did not succumb till after eighteen days of complete
  abstinence, and  Desbarreaux  Bernard  another  in which life
  was prolonged for sixty-one days, but in this case a little broth
  was taken once. Desportesf refers to the case of a woman sub-
  ject to melancholia who continued to exist during two months
, of abstinence, during which she took nothing into the stomach
  but a little water.
    It would be easy to go on and  quote other instances occur-
  ring among prisoners, shipwrecked persons, those suffering from
  diseases which prevented food entering the stomach, others lost
  in deserts, forests, etc., in which  life has been  prolonged for
  considerable  periods.  Such  cases are, however, quite excep-
  tional.   An interesting instance occurring under one of  these
  heads may, however, be cited as an example.
    M. LepineJ reports the case of a young girl nineteen years of
  age who swallowed a quantity  of sulphuric  acid.  As a conse-
  quence  a stricture of the oesophagus was produced.  Three
  months after the act, liquids  alone passed into the stomach ;
  emaciation was  extreme and  the countenance   palid.   Four
  months subsequently, that is, seven months after  swallowing the
    *Des maladies mentales.  Paris, 1838, p. 203.
    fDu refus de manger chez les alienes.  These de Paris 1864, p.
    JNouvreau dictionnaire de medicine  et de chirurgie pratiques   Paris
  1874. t XVIII, Art. Inanition, p. 503. 
                       INANITION.                     65
acid, the obliteration of the oesophagus was complete, and nothing
whatever could  be swallowed.  The  patient lived for sixteen
days after all food or drink was prevented reaching the stomach.-
During the  last days of her starvation she complained only of
thirst and  not of hunger.   The prostration was extreme and
the temperature greatly lessened.  A tendency to  sleep was
present, and there was a subdued delirium. On the last day of
life there was more excitement;  the conjunctivae were  red, the
pulse thread-like, and the skin cold.  It is not stated  whether
or not attempts  were made to feed this patient by injections
into the rectum of nutritious substances, or by the use of baths
containing  such  matters in  solution.   It  may, however, safely
be taken for granted that efforts of these kinds were  made, and
if so, the unusually long period during which  life was sustained
is explained.
  In all  the cases in which life was extraordinarily prolonged
there was either not a total deprivation of food and drink, or there
was a state of muscular inaction  present particularly favorable
to retardation of the destructive changes in the body which ab-
stinence  produces.  It  may be  asserted that in ordinary cases
absolute  deprivation of food and drink cannot be endured by a
healthy adult longer than ten days, and death generally ensues
before the  end of  the eighth day.  It is said that women sus-
tain abstinence better than men.   Young persons and the aged
certainly resist with less power than those of the middle period
of life.  Dante  was aware of  this fact when  he  made  the chil-
dren of  Ugolino die before their father, the youngest  first, the
oldest last.
  Even though there be a total deprivation of what may strictly 
66
FASTING GIRLS.
be called food, some of the cases already cited show,  that if
water be taken life is preserved for a much longer period than
would otherwise be the case.  Thus a negro woman, according
to Dr. J. W. Francis,* believing herself to  be bewitched, ab-
stained from food  for three weeks, but  during this period took
two small cups of water, to which a very little wine had been
added.
   In a case reported by Dr. McNaughtonf a longer  resistance
was maintained.
   " The  subject of this case was a  young man, aged twenty-
seven, who for three years immediately preceding his death
almost constantly kept  his room, apparently engaged in medi-
tation, a Bible his only companion.   At the latter end of May,
1829, his appetite began to fail;  he ate very little, and on the
2d of July he  declined eating altogether.  For the first six
weeks of his fast he went regularly to the well, washed himself,
and took a bowl full of water with  him into the house.   With
this he occasionally washed his mouth  and  drank a little ; the
quantity taken during the twenty-four hours did not exceed  a
pint.   On  one occasion  he went  three days without  taking
water, but on the fourth morning he was observed to go to the
well and drink copiously and greedily.   For the  first six weeks
he walked out every day,  and sometimes spent the greater part
of the  day in the woods.  He retained his strength  until  a
short time before his death.  During the first three weeks he
emaciated rapidly ; afterwards he did not seem to waste so sen-
sibly. Prof. Willoughby visited him a few days before he died.
   *New York Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. II, p. 31.
   f Quoted from Trans, of the Albany Institute by Dr. Lee in Copland's
Dictionary of Medicine, Vol. I, p. 31. 
INANITION.
67
He found the skin very cold, the respiration feeble and slow.
but otherwise natural; but the effluvia from the breath, and
perhaps the skin, were extremely offensive.  During the greater
part of the  latter week of his life the  parents say there was a
considerable discharge of foul reddish matter from the lungs.
To this perhaps the offensive smell referred to may be chiefly
attributed.  The pulse was regular, but slow and  feeble,  and
the arteries extremely contracted.   The radial  artery, for ex-
ample, could be distinctly felt like a small, hard thread, com.
municating almost a wiry feel.
   " The alvine  evacuations were rare ; it is  believed  that he
passed several weeks without any, but the secretion  of urine
seemed more  regular.  He died after fasting fifty-three days.
On dissection the stomach was  found  loose and flabby.   The
gall bladder was distended  with a dark, muddy-looking bile.
The messentery, stomach and intestines were excessively thin
and transparent.  There was no fat in the omentum."
   In cases of complete abstinence,  the phenomena—to several
of which attention has already  been called—are very striking.
The respiration becomes slow until just before death,  when, as
Chossat observes, there is often a quickening of the respiratory
movements.  The exhaled  breath  has a peculiarly sickening
 and fetid odor.   The pulse loses in force and frequency.
   The blood becomes reduced  in  quantity to  such an extent
 sometimes that, as observed by Collard and Martigny* incisions
 may be made in various parts of the  bodies of animals suffer-
 ing from inanition without their being any hemorrhage.

   * Recherches experimentales sur les effets de l'abstinence.  Journal de
 Physiologie de Magendie, t. VIII, p.  150. 
68                   FASTING GIRLS.
  The animal temperature  falls, according to Chosset, 8° per
day until  the  day of  death, when it  reaches  140 ;  and at the
moment life departs, the loss suddenly becomes 300.
  All the  secretions are diminished in quantity.  This is espe-
cially shown as regards the saliva and urine.   Even open sores
cease to secrete pus.
  At first there is pain, the seat of  which is  referred to the
stomach, and which pain in  the beginning, being simply a feel-
ing of emptiness, rapidly assumes a gnawing or tearing charac-
ter.   But  before long this fades  away and it does not appear
that in the middle and final  stages of inanition there is any
suffering which can be called a pain, or which can be fixed in
any definite part of the body.
  The mental faculties are  profoundly affected.   A high state
of delirium supervenes,  and  there  are  often hallucinations.
These sometimes relate to food, which  appears to the sufferer
to be spread out before him  in the most seducing manner.  All
nobility of character  disappears, and selfishness and brutality
govern.   Finally the delirium becomes low and muttering, the
bodily weakness becomes excessive, walking, or even standing,
is impossible, the sufferer loses all sensation, and death ensues.
  But probably no part of the subject is of more interest than
that which relates to the association of inanition with hysteria.
As is well known by physicians, the existence of this latter con-
dition enables many to bear partial, or even complete  depriva-
tion of food longer and with less  apparent suffering than would
be possible with individuals in good health.
   That Miss Fancher is subject to hysteria is very evident from
a consideration of the clinical history of her case, and hence it 
                       INANITION.                     69
is to be expected that she can endure long fasts without much
inconvenience.  It is just possible that she might, by remaining
quietly in bed in a state of partial or complete trance—a hys-
terical condition in which the waste of the tissues is greatly re-
duced—exist  for a month without  either food  or  drink, and
therefore the proposition which I made to her friends contains
no exacting condition.   But when it is gravely said that " for a
period of nearly fourteen years she has lived  absolutely without
food or nourishment of any kind," we are forced to declare, in
the interest of science, that the statement is necessarily abso-
lutely devoid of  truth.   Subsequent  statements, as we  have
seen, modify  this fourteen years'  claim very materially,  and
really leave it in doubt whether there was  any abstinence at
all.
  But I think it may safely be believed that  Miss Fancher  has
indulged in frequent long fasts.  Hysteria  is very frequently
marked, not only by the ability to endure lengthened periods
of  abstinence, but by  the  abolition of all desire for food, to
such an extent that the sight  or  even idea  of aliment of  any
kind excites loathing and disgust.  M. Lasegue,* in a very in-
teresting memoir, has  discussed  this part of the subject with
great precision, and  has shown that  though  such patients  take
very little food they do take some, and that eventually they ex-
perience all the  symptoms of inanition.  He has never  seen
death result from the abstinence, for as soon as the condition
becomes  decidedly unpleasant  the  patient  resumes gradually
her normal alimentation.
   In a case recently under my care, a young lady twenty-three
  * De 1' anorexie hysterique.   Archives generates de mddicine, April 1875. 
70                   FASTING GIRLS.
years of age became hysterical in  consequence  of  domestic
troubles, and losing all desire for food, took nothing daily but a
single cup of chocolate.  She persevered in this restricted diet for
twenty-nine days, although during the last  eight or ten she gave
decided evidences of starvation.  She became emaciated,  her
temperature fell, especially in the extremities, her breath was
offensive, her menstruation ceased, and there was such a marked
sense of discomfort that she began  to crave  food, not, as  she
said, because her appetite had  returned, but  because she was
afraid she would die.  Still she  resisted  till, on  the thirtieth
day, she begged for a little beef tea, and from that moment her
appetite returned to her, and by the end  of another week, she
was eating her ordinary quantity and variety of food.
   Now, in  this  case, though the amount of  nutriment taken
daily was small, it was of such a character as to be well able to
sustain life.  The half pint of chocolate  contained milk  and
sugar, besides the highly nutritious chocolate, with its carbona-
ceous and nitrogenous matters, and yet a month was the ex-
treme limit of endurance.
   That a state of inanition exists in Miss Fancher is not to be
doubted.   The extreme emaciation, the reduced bodily temper-
ature, the contracted stomach and  intestines, the great bodily
weakness, all  show that she is not  sufficiently nourished.  In
her case there is apparently not only an absence of appetite but
 a positive disgust for food ; and another symptom often present
 in  inanition—vomiting  when nutriment is  taken  into  the
 stomach—appears also to be a prominent feature.  It is proba-
 ble that there is likewise a notable diminution in  the amount of
 urine excreted, as this is a common accompaniment of hysterical 
                       INANITION.                     71

manifestations such as her's.  In  some instances  the  function
appears to be almost entirely arrested, as was the fact in a case
described by M. Charcot,* and in two which have come under
my own observation.
  There is nothing remarkable in the admitted fact that Miss
Fancher eats very little.  We have seen how existence can be
kept up on greatly reduced  quantities of food, and under cir-
cumstances such as those governing her case, for periods which
would be impossible in healthy persons.   No one yet under any
conditions, whether of hysteria or trance or assumed miraculous
interference, has, to  the satisfaction of competent and disinter-
ested investigators, lived even two months without the injestion
of any food whatever.   As to going nearly fourteen years in a
state  of  abstinence—a  statement in  her  behalf  which  many
persons believe to be true—I can only say that  all the teachings
of science  and of experience are against  the  claim.  No one
who had the most superficial idea of what  knowledge  is and
how facts can be proven, would  for a moment accept  such a
preposterous story, no matter by whom asserted.
   The whole subject is one which is to  be examined  into and
determined like any other matter, and yet, when a proposition
is made to investigate by skilled observers the remarkable claim
put forward, it is  met with  abuse and misrepresentation, as if
these people thought that all they had to do was  to  make an
assertion of a phenomenon which, according to what we know
of nature, is absurd  and impossible, to have it  at once accepted
by those who  know, by painful experience, how  doubtful all
  * Le'cons sur les maladies du systeme nerveux t. I, 2d edition. Paris.
1876, p. 178. 
72                   FASTING GIRLS.
things are till they are  proven, and  how difficult it  is to get
satisfactory evidence of  the most simple event in physiology or
pathology.   No one doubts the abstract possibility of a human
being living  without food, for, bearing in mind the discoveries
that are constantly being made, nothing can be regarded as ab-
solutely impossible outside the domain  of  mathematics.  Two
and two cannot make six, neither  can two distinct bodies oc-
cupy the same space at the same  time, nor the square of the
hypothenuse be otherwise than equal  to the sum of the squares
of the other  two sides of a right angled triangle.
  Our knowledge of natural .xience is, however, founded on ex-
perience.  Looking at a bear, for instance, for the first time, and
with no knowledge of its habits and capacities we would not be apt
to believe that the  animal could go into retirement at the begin-
ning of winter and remain till spring in a condition of semi-
existence and without food.  But experience teaches us that
the bear when it begins to hibernate is fat; that during hiber-
nation it is in a perfectly quiescent state ; that when it emerges
into active life again it is emaciated, and that during the whole
period of retirement it has taken nothing into its stomach.  We
then know by observing that all  bears  go through  the same
process,  that it is a law  of their organism to do so, and that
their  reduced functional  actions are maintained by the con-
sumption of the fat with which in the beginning their bodies
were loaded.  Even here, then, there is no exception  to the law
that there is no  force without  the decomposition of  matter.
Now, it is just possible that by some  hitherto unknown or un-
recognized condition of  the system a man or woman  may ob-
tain the  force necessary  to carry on life for fourteen years with- 
                       INANITION.                     73
out getting it  through food taken into the stomach.  But a
possibility and a fact are two very different things, and the ad-
mitted possibility has not yet been  shown  to be  a  fact.   It is
easier—to use the argument of  Hume—for the mind to accept
the view that  there  is deception or error somewhere, than to
believe that a woman, contrary to all human experience, should
live fourteen years without food.  Turtles, we know, will live for
months while entirely deprived of nutriment.   Many others of
the cold-blooded animals will do the  same thing.   It is their
nature to do so, and we have  experience  of the  fact, but it is
not the nature of women, so far as we  know, and therefore we
refuse to accept as true the stories which are told of their powers
in this direction. And our knowledge  is based not only on our
daily experience of the wants of their  systems and  the  exam-
ples of starvation which have come to our knowledge, but also
upon the fact that in the many cases  of alleged long abstinence
from food that have been  investigated, error or  deception has
been discovered. Therefore, when it is said that Miss Fancher
lives without food, and has so done for fourteen years, we simply
say, " give us the proofs."  Of  course the proofs are not given.
   How far Miss Fancher is responsible for the  assertions that
have been made in regard  to her long-continued abstinence  I
do not know.   A tendency to deception is a notable phenom-
enon of hysteria, and if she has led those  about  her to accept
the view that  she has existed without  food for  years, the cir-
cumstance would be in no way remarkable.  Other hysterical
women have deceived in the same  or in still more astonishing
ways.  Or it may be that the amount of food taken  being very
small, carelessness or want of exactness has led to the express- 
74                    FASTING GIRLS.
ion that she lived  upon "absolutely nothing," just  as we  hear
the words  used every  day by  those  who  have little  or no
appetite, but who nevertheless do eat something.  Again, a love
for the marvellous  is so deeply rooted in the average human
mind that it willingly, and  to  a  certain extent unconsciously,
adds to any statement of a remarkable  circumstance, till the
latter grows,  whilst being  repeated, to fabulous dimensions.
  But  however  this may be, whatever the explanation,  it is
quite  certain that if  Miss Fancher has lived  fourteen  years
without food, or even fourteen months, or weeks, she is a unique
psychological or pathological individual, whose case is worthy
of all the consideration which can be given to it, not by super-
stitious  or credulous or ignorant persons, but by  those who,
trained  in  the  proper methods  of   scientific research,  would
know how to get the whole truth of  her case, and nothing  but
the truth.  It is to be regretted, therefore, that the proposition
contained in the annexed  letter (appendix)  was not accepted,
and that we are forced  to  place Miss  Fancher's case among
the others which have proved to be  fallacious, till such time as
it may suit her and her friends to allow of such an examination. 
APPENDIX.
   The following letter embraces  the proposition made to Miss
Fancher, to which allusion is made in the text;
To the Editor of the Herald :—
  I have  read the letter of Professor Henry M. Parkhurst, published in a
recent issue of the Herald, relative to the " mind reading " or clairvoyance
of Miss Mollie Fancher, of Brooklyn, and it does not satisfy me that the
young lady in question possesses any such power.  It would have been very
easy for her to have opened the envelope without disturbing the seal and to
have  read the contents.   Now, there has been a great deal of  talk about
Miss  Fancher's case.   I  have received just fifty-seven letters asking me to
investigate it, and  the press has  reiterated the invitation over and over
again.  I have stated  very explicitly that I regard the whole matter as a
humbug of the most  decided kind, but I have never asserted the impossi-
bility of the  young lady's alleged  performances.  On  the  contrary,  I hold
nothing to be absolutely impossible outside the domain of mathematics.
But possibilities and realities are very different things, and I certainly will
not accept as true any such phenomena as those asserted  to have been asso-
ciated with Miss Fancher unless they are proven.
  I have already declared my readiness to investigate Miss Fancher,  and, a
few days since, in the Sun, proposed a test which will be perfectly satisfac-
tory to me and many others who, at present, are in accordance with me in
my estimation of this young lady.  Permit me now to state it definitely,
specifically, and  once  for all. I  will place a  certified check for a sum of
money exceeding $ 1,000  inside of a single paper envelope.  I will lay the
package on a table in the room  in which she  ist   If she chooses she may
take it  in her hands and place it in contact with any part  of her body.  I
will allow her half an hour to describe the check.  If she reads it—number,
date,  on whom drawn, amount,  signature,  etc.—accurately,  she may have
the check as her own property, or I will give  the amount expressed in the
check, in her name to any charitable institution she may designate, or other-
wise dispose of it in accordance with her wishes. 
76
APPENDIX.
  The only conditions I exact are these :—
  First—That the experiment be conducted in my presence and in that of
two other physicians,  members of the New  York  Neurological  Society,
whom  I will bring with me as witness  simply, and who will not interfere in
any way with the test.
  Second—That the envelope shall at no time pass out of our sight.
  If Miss Fancher  succeeds  in this test I will admit that heretofore in my
denunciations of such performances as hers I have been in error, and that
there  is a force in  nature which ought to be  investigated.   I will pay the
money not only  without chagrin, but  with great satisfaction, and will con-
sider that I have received full value.
  If she  fails, as I  am quite sure  she will, I shall not hesitate to continue
to denounce her as an imposition in this as well as in her assumed abstinence
from food.
  A word further in regard to this last matter.   I  know something about
" fasting girls" and their frauds, not excepting the sad case of poor little Sarah
Jacobs.  But I will make this additional proposition :—If Miss Fancher will
allow  herself to  be  watched, day and night,  for one month, by  relays of
members of  the  New York Neurological Society, I will give her  $1,000 if
at the  end of that month she has not in the meantime taken food voluntarily
or as a forced  measure to save  her from dying of starvation, the danger of
this last  contingency to be  judged of by her family physician, Dr. Spier.
These offers to  remain open for acceptance till twelve o'clock M., Decem-
ber 31st.  If not taken up  by that time, let us hear no more in support of
Miss Fancher's mind reading or  clairvoyance, or living for a dozen  or more
years without food.
                               WILLIAM A.  HAMMOND, M. D.
43 West Fifty-Fourth Street, New York, Dec. 12th, 1878. 
 
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