Part 9

Again, it is said that the food taken by Miss Fancher was at once rejected. That it was all rejected, is in the highest degree 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 perpetrated 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 contrary, similar ones are often met with as we have seen, and the following which I quote from Millingen, is so like it in many respects, that the two might have been formed after a common model, as in fact they were, just as two or more cases of pneumonia 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 produced 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 discharges 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 instances, a little gruel, but even in these attempts almost the whole was rejected. On two occasions also, after a total abstinence 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 exceptions, 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 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. McKenzie 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 nothing definite in regard to the fasting abilities of the young woman. 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 it is stated that she "seemed" to go four years without food or drink.

In regard to Miss Fancher, the evidence is a little conflicting. First we have Dr. Speir 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 conversation, 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 constantly with her for thirteen years. She may have taken food in my absence.'"

In which opinion all physiologists will join.

As I have said, hysterical women certainly do exhibit a marked ability to go without both food and drink. I have had patients abstain from sometimes one, sometimes the other, and sometimes both, for periods varying from one day to eleven, and this without much, if any, suffering, for as soon as the suffering came they did not hesitate to signify their desire to break their voluntary fasts. Real suffering is a condition which the hysterical woman avoids with the most assiduous care.

FOOTNOTES:

Curiosities of Medical Experience. London, 1837, Vol. I., page 269, article, Abstinence.

THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF INANITION.

The opinion that food and drink are necessary to life is so generally accepted by mankind, that few venture to dispute the dictum of Virchow relative to Louise Lateau, "Fraud or miracle." But although it is impossible so far as we know for individuals to continue to exist for months and years without the ingestion of nutriment into the system, it is undoubtedly true that under certain circumstances life can be prolonged for days and weeks without any food of any kind going into the organism.

The body is a machine constructed for the purpose of working. 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 respiration, the evolution of the animal heat, the various functions of 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 of 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 assimilated 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 alcohol, 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 directly or indirectly, all bodily force results from its decomposition, 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 equal, consumes more than a watchmaker; just as a locomotive burns more fuel than the little engine that runs a sewing machine; 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 intervals, suffices for the supply of all, or a great portion of the waste of the body. With such a person there is not much intense thought, there is little or no muscular action, the pulsations of the heart do not require to be of much force, the respiration 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 instance, a body weighing one hundred pounds, could endure the 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, nevertheless 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 Bergemoletto, 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 breadth, and the snow was over forty-two feet in depth. Notwithstanding 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 Belgium 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.

A case is mentioned by Foderé 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 respiration barely perceptible. Foderé ascribes their long existence without either food or drink, to the fact that the atmosphere of the vault was exceedingly humid, and that the moisture was absorbed into their bodies, taking the place of water ingested into the stomach.

In another case reported by Dr. Straus, 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.