The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-09-05
THE DALLAS HERALD SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER s. $780,

gather them at present will call another
meeting in the fall" To this DR.. Tanner
Immediately answered "that the fast had al
ready commenced, and that he had already
informed DR.. Hammond he could not stand
the delay and expense in New York until
fall and earnestly requested DR.. Gray TO cal
a meeting of the Neurological society al
once and appoint watchers to be with him
during the fast, offering every facility fol
observation" etc. These, too, are facts Of
record and do not warrant the statement Of
E.culapius that Tanner "had forfeited the
c n6dence of the medical. public at large,
or does Esculapius mean to say that all viz.
tue, all wisdom, all truth is resident alone in
the particular medical school Of which he Is
member? Does he mean to say that he is
welded to an arbitrary medical code of ethics
that demands that only they be believed
who are "the accepted thereof?' Are the
entire Fifty gentlemen of the medical profess
sion AID students Of the United states medi.
ca college and the sixteen allopathic gradu
sted ply sicisns who kept watch of DR.. Tan
ner, to go for nothing in their statements
Are they to be wholly discredited when they
declare that they "are prepared -
certify under oath that the doctor took
ne food during their respective watches p
Is all or any of this in accordance with the
elementary rules Of evidence? And then
there were bets Of thousands of dol
lars on the result. Surely had
there been any hocus pocus in
the affair something would have
leaked out ere now. Here is direct, corrob-
Grating positive evidence, whose probative
force is not to be destroyed nor invalidated
by differences of negativing character. 1t
has its base on absolute perception, and to
this hour remains unimpeached. Assuming,
ifyou choose, that all requirements arbitra-
rily insisted on by one sect, were not COM
piled with, is that an argument to refute the
assertions, the certificates of other equally
competent and honest people who, with ar
gus eyes and ambitious yearnings in sensa-
tional direction, performed one of the easiest
acts Of close vigilance over one poor mortal ?
This view of the case is confirmed by the can
dor and sincerity..of DR.. VIM. A. Hammond,
and president of the Neuro-
logical society in New York, when he says in
his statement of the 4th Of August al
think the watching has been honestly cor
Quoted, though at times, as l have under
stood, it may have been negligent. be-
lieve he has faithfully abstained from all
food but water. l believe that he has shown
that alleged instances of fasting month or
more without the symptoms of hamilton be.
ing produced are fraudulent. My offer for
The fall which he will accept, he says, is still
open, but | hope, for his own sake, he will
not accept. The scientific results are not
what they should be, butneverlheless enough
lss been shown to cause us to modify our
views in regard to the effects of
hamilton on the human body"
Add to this the New York Herald watch.
This, its city department staff, had, as
part of it's duties, to examine everything be-
fore il was handed to the doctor, and also to |
lsnd it to him. One of them invariably |
accompanied the doctor on his carriage rides,
aud at no time during moment of the
.hirty-three days, were the eyes of the Herald |
reporter away from the personality of the
ioctor. Along with this was double watch |
Of sixteen men for each twenty.four hours.
This vigilance cost the Herald between 81, 800
md SL70O. Add to this yet another thing,
viz that every particle of matter vomited
BY DR.. Tanner was rigidly analysed by
The physicians and not the slightest trace Of
food was ever found in this and other dis
charges, nothing but the waste of the system
and the liquid imbibed. AS still more relia-
be detective, to test the entire honesty of the
faster, the microscope skept busy on duty
and readily told the fidelity of that faster's
work. In view of all these facts, how pecu-
liar, how reckless we say, seemed the express
sons of our Esculapius when he says Tanner
sis man Of straw" for this is a contradic-
ton to what the president and the vice
president of the Neurological society says of
the doctor; when he says his profession ''is
one too modest to parade before the
public its learning, end too Jealous of the
interests of science to endorse
patent hammock side-show, so called fasting
experiment. when he says physicians, we
emphstically state, did not deny the posi-
bility of Tanners accomplishing feat of
fasting forty days." when he says: "Tanner
perempiorily refused to accede to the require.
ment of the Neurological soc ely, and there
by forfeited the confidence of the medical
public at large;" when he says shat he was
closely watched by members of the regular
medical profession is utterly untrue;" when
he says merely few regular physicians
dropped into the hall occasionally" etc
Compare these statements and intimations
with what we have above given by scientist,
reporters and other gentlemen on the spot.