The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1880-02-12
CAN PEOPLE LIVE WITHOUT FOOD
some remarkable Cases of Long. Contin-
ued fastlng, Together with Several Curl
Gus lmpostures in the Same Line.

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some Remarkable Cases of Long. .Contin-
ued Fasting, Together with Several Curl
Gus impostures in the Same Line.
DIR. William A. Hammond, in his in
teresting little volume on Fasting
Glrls," did not by any means exhaust
thesubjeet to which attention was at
tracted last year by the case of Molly
Fancher, and in which renewed interest
will now be taken because of the pro-
lposal already noticed in these columns
OF physician in Minnesota to abstain
not only from medicine, which would be
less surprising, but from food for long
period under conditions favorable to the
| detection of any imposture. OF medieval
cases Or. Hammond cites several. There
was Liduine of Schiedam, who fell i'll in
1873 and remained an invalid till her
death, 80 yearslater, and who, after liv-
ing for ~ years on piece of apple no
Digger than holy wafer, every day,
washed down withEal little water, a
swallow of beer or little sweet milk,
| wound up finally by taking nothing
whatever In the shape Of nutriment for
IA years. There was St. Joseph of Co
pertino, who Kept seven 4O-day fasts ev-
cry year, during which seasons he ate
only on Thursdays and SUNDAYS, his
food even then being bitter herbs and
dried fruits. There was St. Nicolas of
Flue (notto be confounded with St. Mich
olas OF the New York chimney who, as
| he had embraced the monastic life, aban-
doned all food whatever save the Holy
Eucharist, which, according to the pious
Cores, so 'assimilated his grosser being
to itself that, introduced into superior
sphere. he lived exclusively by grace
| and by heaven. There was the nun of
leicester, in the thirteenth century, who
| also lived on the Eucharist for seven
years; and there were those other holy
persons-Saint Peter of Alcantara, Saint
Rose of Lima, Saint EathaIine of Sienna,
and Saint Collete-who also acquired
the power of living on. the, sacramental
bread. Fasting girls, says DIR. Ham
mond, came in with modern times, the
pious abstinents having vanished with
the Ages of Faith. Margaret Weiss, a
girl OF ten, living near Spires, was ac-
credited with. living for three years
without food or drink. She succeeded
in deceivings the parish priest and DIR.
Geraldus Buccoldinus, who watched her,
and the good doctor made "a conun-
drum out Of her in his book narrating
her case: "Why does the body grow
when, nothing goes into it?" sAppo-
tonia fehreiray a virgin in Berne,H after
being examined and watched by the
Bernese magistrates was declared to
live without eating: Gin the first year
of her fasting she scarcely slept, and in
the second year never once closed her
eyes in sleep y. katherine Binder of
the ,Palatinate was said to have taken
nothing but air during nine years,
and Eva sEliegen, of Meurs, according
to the magistrates and ministers, s'took
no kind of sustenance for the space of
fourteen years together" Cardinal
Richelieu's physician, Franciscus Cite
sius, tells of Joan Balaam of Constance.
who aftsss an attack of fever took a
loathing to food, and for nearly three
years abstained from it altogether, her
appetite subsequently returning. In
1895 there was brought to Cologne a
girl of IL who, it was affirmed, had
lived without food or drink of anv kind
for three years. .~.r In this case, accord
ing to DR.. Hammond, organic disease
seems to have been complicated with
fraud and hysteria. Perhaps we need
not cite the works of iJohn Heydon, an
enthusiast of the Rosie Cross, who held
that could easily fast all their lives,
should the same even extend 800 years,
and who fairly smacks his lips as it
were, like very glutton, over g the fine
foreign fatness fin the dir which ought
to be sufficient for all moderate folk.
He admits that people of enormous ap-
petites might from time to time indulge
in the additional stimulus of plaster of
cooked meat applied to the epigastrum.
Chambers, however, prints great
many cases of alleged abstinence ex-
tending over protraeted periods. Among
these may q be mentioned that of Cecilia
Rygeway, whom Edward III. pardoned
April 20, 1857, "moved by piety and
for the glory of God and the Blessed
Virgin,'' who had wrought miracle in
enabling her to live forty days in Not
tingham Jail without, food or. drink,
when accused OF her husbands mur-
der, and of John Scott, the Faster, a
man of Teviotdale, who in 1881 took
sanctuary in the Abbey of Holyrood
| House, where he remained thirty or
forty days without food, and then by Or
! der of the King was shut up in the
castle for 32 days, at the end of which
period the bread and water left in the
cell with him were found to be un-
touched. Scott afterwards went to
Rome, where Clement VII certified to
the honesty of his abstinence, an exhib-
ition of which he gave also at Venice
after his return, as he claimed, from the
Holy Land, Scott went to- London,
where, for preaching against Henry
VIII. $ detection from the Church, and
his divorce from Katharine of Arragon,
he was cast into prison, where he re-
manned for so days, little disconnected
and still fasting. Albergati of Bonoma
Investigated Scott's case at his own
house, and September l, 1852, after a
trial Of IL days, attested his belief that
Athe man lived without eating. The
case of Mary Waughton of Wigginton,
in Staffordshire, is also given, who
lived on spoonful of milk and water a
day, with piece of bread as large as a
/ Lo1 ne II