Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1880-08-25
Scientific Aspects of the F. st.
New York Tribune.1

The files of the English and French
press furnish abundant proofs of the in
terest excited by DR.. Tanners fast in med
ical and scientific circles abroad. The
experiment was regarded at the outset as
a coarse imposture practiced by con-
scienceless quacks, and the earliest de-
tails were received with incredulity and
amusement. The enterprise of two of
the London journals, the Standard and
the Meas, in publishing every day for
three weeks special dispatches relating to
DR.. Tanners condition gradually dis.
PEELED the notion that the undertaking
was a vulgar performance conducted
merely as q peepshow to gull the public
and to fill the pockets of spectators out
side. The special dispatches were widely
copied by the English press, copious ex-
tracts were taken from the American ex.
change files, the Partisan paragraph
writer's made DR.. Tanners stomach the
subject of boulevard gossip, and the med
lcal journals of the two countries took
part in the discussion with unwonted
promptness and professional zest.
1t was not long before the medical cor
respondents of the Lancet were giving
recent instances iD their own practice to
show that DR.. Tanners fast was by no
means unexampled. Two of these cases
are worth citing. A physician of the
highest standing attended a lady over
sixty years of age, who for some unex
planned reason had suddenly refused food
in any form. She lived for exactly
seven weeks, and died on the forty
ninth or fftieth day, during the
whole of which period she took nothing
but cold water-at first freely, but gradu-
ally in smaller quantities-with one ex-
ception-a dessertspoontul of brandy in
water, which was never repeated. At the
time of her death, although her arms and
legs had become very thin, her body re-
tanned much OF its previous stoutness.
The other patient was q gardener, suffer
ing from cancer in the stomach, which
caused him such intense agony that for
forty.one days before his death he took no
food of any kind, either fluid or solid. In
this case there was great emaciation be-
fore death, but his brain was clear to the
last. These fresh instances, supported as
they were by a great number of well.
authenticated cases cited by medical
writers and Psychologists, dispelled the
assumption that DR.. Tanner must be
charlatan and cheat. The British Med.
zeal Journal pronounced the experiment
one of considerable scientific interest
albeit an absurd one in some respects, and
stated it as an undoubted fact that an ami
NAL will live longer on water alone than
on any proximate principle of food in
dry state. The Lancet spoke more dis.
paragingly of the physiological aspects
OF the case, maintaining that the sole OBJ
ject of SO sensational performance was
to ascertain, not whether man could live
forty days without food, which had been
already proved by undoubted cases, but
whether DIR. Tanner could do it.
From this judgment, now that this phe.
nomenal test has come to an end and the
patient is rapidly recovering from the ei-
fects of his prolonged fast, few American
PSYCHOLOGISTS or physicians of recognized
standing in their profession will be dis
posed to dissent. The upshot of the
whole matter is that it has heretofore
been known that human beings as vel!
as animals can live long time without
food under favorable circumstances.
While the limit for the existence of the
human organism after all supplies have
been cut off has been commonly set
somewhere between eight and ten days,
the ordinary textbooks of physiology
have given numerous instances in which