Reviews.

Fasting Girls; their Physiology and Pathology.

BY WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M.D. 8vo. pp. 76. New York: G. P. Putnam Sons.

THE recent fast of Dr. Tanner gives additional interest to this work, which was written on account of the excitement caused by another case of fasting in New York some time ago. The object of the author was, as he states in the preface, to do something towards the removal of a lamentable degree of popular ignorance, so great that when the assertion was made that a young lady lived for fourteen years without food of any kind, thousands of persons throughout America at once believed the declaration. The book contains five chapters:-1. Fasting in the Middle Ages. 2. Abstinence in Modern Times. Abstinence from Food, with Stigmatization. 4. The Brooklyn Case of Fasting, which led to the publication of the work, and 5. The Physiology and Pathology of Inanition.

3.

Numerous cases of fasting in the Middle Ages are given, in some of which the person was said to have been nourished by angels, and in others by the devil. Many cases, both of the diabolical abstinence from food and of the holy fasting, exhibited manifestations of hysteria. One of the chronicles details the symptoms, and ascribes them without hesitation to devilish agency. Thus he says:"The functions of the organs of nutrition are sometimes profoundly altered in the possessed, and these alterations are manifested 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 sometimes rising in her throat, and again falling to her stomach. 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

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(a priest) who had recourse to supernatural means, and cured her." The ability to live on the Holy Sacrament, and to resist starvation by diabolical power, died out with the Middle Ages, and was replaced by the "fasting girls." One of these, Margaret Weiss, was only ten years of age, and yet her powers of deception were so well developed that after being watched by the priest of the parish and Dr. Bucoldianus, she was considered free from all juggling, and really to live, grow, walk, and talk like other children of her age, without either food or drink. This greatly staggered the doctor who observed her, who asked very pertinently, "Whence comes the animal heat, since she neither eats nor drinks, and why does the body grow when nothing goes into it?" But notwithstanding this he seemed to be fully convinced of her abstinence.

In several other cases which are reported all attempts to discover the imposture failed, but as we approach modern times the detection becomes more frequent. About sixty-five years ago a woman, named Ann Moore, declared that she did not eat, and many persons volunteered to watch her. After continuing to do so for three weeks they reported that hers was a real case of abstinence from food of all kinds. Many people from all parts of the country visited her, leaving her with donations to a considerable amount. Doubts having again arisen, Ann consented to a second watching, but, unluckily for her, amongst the committee was a Dr. Fox, and his son, Mr. Francis Fox, who suggested that the bedstead, bedding, and woman in it should be placed in a weighing-machine. It was thus ascertained that she lost weight daily. The watch was very strict, two of the committee being in the room night and day, and at the expiration of the ninth day Dr. Fox found her evidently sinking, and told her she would soon die unless she took food. After a little prevarication 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 continued, 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.

The well-known case of Sarah Jacobs, the Welsh fasting-girl, is given at considerable length. Here, as in all the other cases, the declaration that she fasted entirely was accepted as a fact by numbers of people, but on the 9th of December, 1869, at 4 P.M., the watch by four experienced nurses from Guy's Hospital began, and on the 17th of December, at about halfpast three o'clock, the poor girl died of starvation.

In the next chapter the performances of Palma d'Oria and

Louise Lateau are described, but their cases are considered chiefly in reference to their fasting, and not so much to the phenomena of stigmatization which accompanied it.

The Brooklyn case of Miss Fancher, who was said to have taken no food for fourteen years, and to have been possessed, also, of the power of clairvoyance, induced Dr. Hammond not only to write the present work, but to offer publicly to place a cheque for a thousand dollars inside a paper envelope, and to give it either to Miss Fancher or to any charitable institution she might name if she would only describe the cheque accurately without allowing the envelope to pass out of the sight of those who were watching her. He also offered to give another thousand if she would allow herself to be watched night and day for a month, by members of the New York Neurological Society, and if, at the end of the month, she had not taken food voluntarily or as a forced measure to save her from dying of starvation.

In the fifth chapter Dr. Hammond sums up the physiology and pathology of inanition, and he concludes that 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, like every other machine, performs work and requires fuel, but the quantity of food or fuel required by the system varies in accordance with the work which has to be performed. The ploughman, other things being equal, consumes more than the watchmaker, just as the locomotive engine burns more fuel than the little engine which runs a sewing machine. When little work is done, a very little food may go a long way, and the body itself can, to a certain extent, be used up to supply the force required for functions without the necessity for immediate restoration by means of food, but to this power there is a limit beyond which it is certain death to go. Chossat determined this point by experiments performed upon pigeons, guinea-pigs, rabbits, &c., and found that death generally occured when the body had lost fourtenths of its original weight. Five-tenths, or one-half, appeared to be the extreme loss of weight which the body could endure without death resulting. Similar observations to those of Chossat on the lower animals have been occasionally made on human subjects, in consequence either of accident or disease. Thus in Belgium, in 1683, four colliers were confined in a coal-pit for twenty-four days without anything to eat, and having nothing to live on but a little water. Cases of prolonged abstinence often occur amongst the insane. Dr. Willan relates the case of one man who lived for sixty days on nothing but a little orange juice.

Desbarreaux Bernard relates another in which life was prolonged for sixty-one days, although there was total abstinence excepting a little broth taken once; and Deportes refers to another woman who continued to live for two months with nothing but a little water. Another case is reported by Dr. McNaughten, in which a young man died after fasting for fiftythree days, during which he had taken no food, although he drank a good deal of water.

From the observations collected by Dr. Hammond in this work it is clear that in ordinary cases fasting cannot be prolonged very much beyond a week, but that under exceptional circumstances, and especially in some abnormal conditions of the nervous system, life may be preserved for a much longer time without food. It is much to be regretted that Dr. Tanner should have put himself to so much inconvenience and pain during his prolonged fast, without taking such precautions in regard to watching as would have placed the fact of his abstinence beyond doubt. Unluckily, however, instead of putting himself under the observation of the New York Neurological Society, which would have provided watchers thoroughly trained, and whose evidence would have established the fact of his abstinence as well as it was possible for any testimony to do; he chose his watchers from amongst the Eclecties, who occupy on his side of the Atlantic much the same position that homoeopaths do here, Men who know Dr. Tanner personally, however, believe in his integrity, and consider that he really has fasted for the whole forty days. If this be the case, it is very remarkable, inasmuch as Dr. Tanner has not lain quietly in bed, doing no work and husbanding his resources by reducing the action of the heart and lungs to a minimum, but has gone through a good deal of exertion, mental and bodily, in walking and riding about, and receiving and entertaining visitors. If Dr. Tanner has really succeeded in fasting for forty days, his success must no doubt be attributed in a great measure to the external warmth of the summer weather in New York, which has reduced to a minimum the waste necessary for the maintenance of the bodily temperature. It is just possible, indeed, that the high external temperature may have actually supplied a certain amount of energy to the body, but this is a point on which at present we have little or no information. Of late years we have seen examples of endurance such as would formerly have been reckoned incredible, as in the case of the long walks taken by Weston, and the long swims of Captain Webb, and it is possible that Dr. Tanner's fast is another instance of endurance which, though of a different sort, may be classed with theirs. But it is much to be regretted that, unlike the performances of Webb and Weston, the genuineness of Dr..

Tanner's exploit has not been satisfactorily tested by witnesses on whose testimony implicit reliance could be placed.

To all who are interested in this subject, Dr. Hammond's little book will prove both amusing and instructive.

A Practical Treatise on Sea Sickness, its Symptoms, Nature, and Treatment. By GEORGE A. BEARD, A.M., M.D. 8vo. pp. 74. New York: E. B. Treat.

Ar this season of the year, when many persons are crossing the Channel, on their way to or from the Continent, the subject of sea-sickness aquires a special interest. In this little treatise the author discusses the pathology, symptoms, and treatment of the malady. He considers it to be a functional disease of the central nervous system, and not a disorder of the stomach, liver, or digestive apparatus. Its effects he considers to be injurious rather than beneficial. Sometimes, no doubt, it does good, but, as Mr. Beard justly remarks, typhoid fever sometimes does so also, but no one on that account seeks an attack of typhoid fever, and all the benefit of a sea voyage can be obtained without suffering sea-sickness. Its cause is purely mechanical, being occasioned by the movements of the ship. It attacks horses, dogs, fowls, and human beings, but is most likely to attack, and is most severe on, those who are most sensitive and nervous. Thus it is that Americans suffer more than Europeans, and women, especially delicate women, more than men. It can, in the majority of cases, the author believes, be entirely prevented or greatly relieved by proper treatment. This consists, first, in the preliminary use of the bromides, in large doses, and preferably the bromide of sodium. These should be taken from one to three days before sailing, so that the individual may become mildly bromised before reaching rough water, and this kind of mild bromism should be kept up during the voyage if necessary. Secondly, in the use of sulphate of atropia, in doses of from to of a grain, hypodermically or by the mouth, repeated with sufficient frequency to produce great dryness of the mouth. This treatment may be adopted either alone or in combination with the bromides. In some cases atropia is sufficient without the bromides. It prepares the way for them, and enables the stomach to bear them, and to bear food and other medication during the attack. Thirdly, the powdered citrate of caffein, in two or three grain doses, should be used for the sick headache. Pills of half to one-third of a grain of Cannabis Indica are excellent to relieve the sick headache of sea-sickness, and have the advantage over caffein that they do not cause sleeplessness, which caffein would sometimes do if used in the latter part of the day. Those who carry out