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farther perseverance. The day after its omission, the vo miting and oppression seemed to return, when I immediately determined on its resumption, as I knew I had gained no hing till the mouth was affected. She now took ten grains with three of opium every twenty-four hours, during five more days, when the mouth at length appeared affected, and it was again omitted. From this period the mouth continued sore for near a fortnight, during which she drank some decoct. cinchon, and recovered rapidly, without ever mentioning vomiting or load at the stomach from the commencement of the ptyalism. In this case, which was truly obsti nate, the only difficulty was to induce the salivation, she having taken upwards of 180 grains of calomel before the violence of the disease allowed it to affect the mouth; nor was it carried off by the bowels, as they were generally costive during the fortnight of its exhibition; it acted only as a gentle sudorific. The subjects of these cases, although they have all occurred within the last six months, now enjoy the most perfect health. And in every instance of this prac tice, the convalescence seems particularly short when aided with the bark.

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Although I have been for some time making experiments and observations on the effects of this medicine, which promise the happiest result, I shall here conclude, without entering at present into its modus operandi, by stating one fact which is as invariable as the law of nature on which it is founded, viz. in proportion as a ptyalism is induced, in the same proportion will the original disease subside.

Ipswich, July 6, 1813.

Your's respectfully,
W. HAMILTON, Surgeon.

To the Editors of the Medical and Physical Journal.

GENTLEMEN,

IN consequence of the great attention which has been

bestowed by the philosophical world to the impostor Ann Moore, together with the spirit of inquiry which still exists as to the possibility of the human animal subsisting without food, I have transmitted to you the following extracts from a paper in the Harleian Miscellany, which I thought at the least curious, and perhaps not without some degree of interest. The discourse was written by John Reynolds, and dedicated to Walter Needham, Doctor of Physic, and Member and Curator Elect to the Royal Society. It

bears

bears the date of 1669.* It is singular that the instance of reputed abstinence which he has related occurred also in Derbyshire. His exordium, consisting of a collection of similar instances, bears strong testimony of such occa sional deviations from the course of nature; and I must confess, although at a loss to account for it, we are by no means to disregard such a mass of evidence, let the impositions have been ever so numerous. Many other facts less palpable to the community at large, and much less susceptible of proof, are believed, although equally inexplicable; and deceptions of this kind are so easily detected by the eye of the vulgar as well as that of the philosopher, we ought to be ne less cautious in our rejection of what appears supernatural, than in giving it our implicit credence. Credulity and incre dulity are alike the offsprings of unreflecting habits. Too great a pliability on the one side, and too much inflexibility on the other, are obstacles that will always interrupt the way to truth. That pen, however, as our author says, 66 cer+ tainly drops blasphemy, that dares to raze the sacred records; and that uncharitableness which presumes to write falsehood upon all human testimonies: they that assent to nothing not confirmed by authority, are unfit to converse in human societies; for how can I expect that anybody should believe me, whilst I myself will believe nobody? It is an argument of an empty brain, to presume to comprehend all things, and thereupon to reject those things from an exist ence in their world, that have not their science in its intelluals."

"Most certain it is, that the + learned Moses+ fasted forty days, and as many nights, whilst he abode in the burning mount; the great Elijah || went as long in the strength of a meal; and no less was the fast of the holy Jesus. St. AustinT reports, that, in his time, one survived forty days fasting.

* A Discourse upon prodigious Abstinence; occasioned by the twelvemonth's Fasting of Martha Taylor, the famed Derbyshire damsel: proving that, without any Miracle, the Texture of Human Bodies may be so altered, that Life may be long continued without the Supplies of Meat and Drink. With an Account of the Heart, and how far it is interested in the Business of Fermentation. By John Reynolds. Humbly offered to the Royal Society. London: Printed for Nevil Summons, at the Sign of the Three Crowns, near Holbourn Conduit, and for Dorman Newman, at the Surgeons Arms, in Little Britain. 1669. Quarto, containing 37 pages, besides the Title and Dedication.-Harl. Miscell. vol. iv. p. 43 et sequent. 1 Kings xix. 8. ad Cæsulanum.

+ Acts vii. 22. § Matt. iv. 2.

Exod. xxx. 28.
August. in Epist. 86.

But

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But most strange is the story fathered on Nicephorus,* of three brethren affrighted by persecution into a cave, where they slept three hundred and seventy-three years, as was known by the coin they produced when they waked. The learned Fernelius + saith, he saw a pregnant woman that lived two months without meat or drink. Zacutus Lusitanus reports, that at Venice there lived a man that fasted forty days; another there forty-six days; and from Longius and Fontius (two considerable writers) another full three years; and that with just stature, good habit, free countenance, and youthful wit. The famous Sennertus is copious in such stories: he relates from Sigismundus and Citesius, a person he saith worthy of credit, that the people of Leucomoria, inhabiting some mountains in Muscovy, do every year die, in a sort, (or rather sleep or freeze,) like frogs or swallows, on November 27, and so continue in that rigid state; the humor, distilling from their nostrils, is presently condensed by the ambient cold, much like to icicles, by which those potent pores are precluded, and the most endangered brain fortified against the fatal assaults of brumal extremities. The same Sennertus rehearses a story of a virgin at Padua, from Viguntia, professor there, who, anno 1598, was afflicted with a fever, then a tumor, then arthritic pains, and pains in the ventricle and whole abdomen; then with vomiting and nauseating of food, till at last she could take no food for two months; then, after another fit of vomiting, purging, and bleeding, she fasted eight months; and after a little use of food, she fasted two months more. And to be short, he stories it of three persons that fasted each two years, one three years, another four, one seven, another fifteen, another eighteen, and one twenty; yea one-twentynine, another thirty, another thirty-six, and one forty years. Famous is the story, perhaps fiction, being poetical, of

Epistle to Titus,) whom some report to have slept seventeen years, some seventy-seven years together. But enough of story: those that are desirous to read more, are referred to Marcellus Donat. lib. iv.; de Med. Hist. Mirab. c. 12; Schenk, lib. iv. ; Observ. Guaguinus, lib. iii.; Hist. Franc.

Nicephor, lib. xiv. cap. 45.
Fernel. lib. vi. Pathol. сар. 1.

Zac. Lusit. de Medic. Princ. Hist. p. 914.

Sennert. Pract. lib. iii. par. 1. sect. 2. c. 3. De Longa Abstin. P: 383,

§ Vid. Sennert, ubi antea. Zac. Lusit. ubi antea. Plutarch in Sympos, et Lib. de Facie in Orb. Lunæ,

NO. 174.

Petrarch,

Petrarch, lib. iii.; de Mirabel, c. 22; Portius de Hist. Puella German.; Uspergensis in Chron.; Lentulus in Hist. Admir. ; Apol. Berius, lib. de Vini Nutritione; Bozius, lib. xi. c. 4. de Signis Eccl.; Fulgorius, lib. i. c. 6; Lepæus, lib. ix.; Hist. Scot. Favorinus apud Gellium, lib. xvi. c. 3; and especially Licetus, who wrote a particular tract to solve the phenomena of this prodigy.'

"

"But further to satisfy these incredulous persons, it is affirmed that some of these abstinents* have been watched by the most wakeful eyes and jealous ears, to detect their fraud, if guilty of any; as was that maid that refused all food, except only water, for three years, by Bucoldianus, with whom she abode for twelve days, at the command of Ferdinand the Empéror; so that Apollonia Schrejerana was taken by the senate of Bern, and put into the hospital of that town, and there watched till they were satisfied of the truth of her total abstinence."

Most of these cases are certainly too unnatural to attempt to refute, however gravely they may have been asserted. Useless, therefore, as the task would be to disprove what nobody would believe, as well as to combat with arguments the existence of what has been said to be seen, believed, and sworn to, it would be equally unjust to doubt the authenticity of the whole. The case which the author himself has related, bears strong testimony of the possibility of the human body subsisting under privations of food for a number of days, if we do not give credit for the full time he has represented. This abstinent, he says, "is one Martha Taylor, a young damsel born of mean parentage, inhabiting not far from Bakewell in Derbyshire; who, receiving a blow on the back from a miller, became a prisoner to her bed for several days; which being expired, she obtained some enlargement for a time, but by increasing distempers was quickly remanded to her bed-prison again; where continuing some time, she found, at last, a defect in her gula, and quickly after a dejection of appetite; so that, about the 22d of December, anno 1667, she began to abstain from all solid food, and so hath continued, (except something so small, at the seldom ebbings of her distemper, as is altogether inconsiderable,) till within a fortnight before the date hereof, which amounts to thirteen months and upwards; as also from all other sorts, both of meats and drinks, except now and then a few drops of the syrup of stewed prunes, water, and sugar, or the juice of a roasted raisin, &c. but these repasts are used so seldom, and in such very small quantities, as are prodigiously insuf

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ficient for sustentation; she evacuates nothing by urine or stool; she spits not, that I can hear of, but her lips are often dry, for which cause she takes water and sugar with a feather, or some other liquids; but the palms of her hands are often moist, her countenance fresh and lively, her voice clear and audible; in discourse she is free; her belly flapped to her back-bone, so that it may be felt through her intestines, whence a great cavity is admitted from the cartilago ensiformis to the navel; and though her upper parts be less emaciated, (though much too,) yet her lower parts are very languid, and unapt for motion, and the skin thereof defiled with a dry pruriginous scurf, for which, of late, they have washed them with milk; she sleeps so sparingly, that once she continued five weeks waking. I hear nothing of any extraordinary previous sanctity,t though since her affliction, being confined to her bed, which lieth in a lower room by the fire-side, she hath learned to read; and being visited so plentifully by the curious from many parts, as also by the religious of all persuasions, she hath attained some knowledge in sacred mysteries, but nothing of enthusiasm, that pretends unto. And, lest she should prove a cheat, she hath been diligently watched by physicians, surgeons, and other persons, (for at least a fortnight together,) by the appointment of the noble Earl of Devonshire, as is already published by Mr. Robins, B. of D., that is, ballad maker of Derby; whose ballad, they say, doth much excel his book." Likewise several other persons, at other times, have been pleased to watch for their own satisfaction, who, detecting no fraud, have given the account above mentioned; which was, for the main, confirmed to me by a sophy, the renown of whose wisdom hath often made England to ring, who assured me that he had an exact account of her."

she

It was observed by Dr. Henderson, from Magn. Gabr. Block. that all examples of extraordinary fasting have been confined to the female sex.

This is another confirmation of

the remark. Men, however, under circumstances of necessity, have been enabled to endure severe privations, even under considerable bodily exertions. The crew of Bligh, t and the history of many other navigators, give full testimony

*

last

This appears to have been the same with Ann Moore, in her stage of abstinence,

In the time of Reynolds and his predecessors, it was generally supposed that food was supplied these abstinents by angels or dæmons, prove that this was not the case, he has particularly mentioned her being a person of no great sanctity.

To

Vide Thornton's Medical Extracts.

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