Morning journal and courier., 1888-08-27

Poitou, who lived three years without susten /
ance; and Hildanus narrates the case of q
girl who lived for many years without food
or drink. Jubertes relates that woman
lived in good health for three years without
nourishment; and that he knew another who
had lived to her tenth year without food or
drink. This extraordinarily abstemious
young lady, when she arrived at proper age,
was married, and henceforth lived like other
people in respect to diet, and had children.
Hard as statements like these are to digest,
there are worse behind. Albertius Krautins
says that a hermit in the mountainsjn the
Canton of Schwytz lived for twenty years
without food: and aecordidg to Petrus de
Albano, there was in his time, in Normandy,
a woman, thirty years of age, who had lived
on air alone for eighteen years. Syivius caps
this with the case of young woman in Spain
who lived well twenty-five years on water,
while he names one at Narbonne, and anoth3
or in Germany who lived for years without
food. Guaguine is very modest after this; he
only tells us that Louis the Pious, Emperor
of the Franks, who died in $40, went forty
days unfed. Democritus lived for 100 years
on the smell of bread and honey.
Coming to something more tangible, We
have the case of a Venetian noble named
Cornaro, who died, aged one hundred and
three, about the middle of the sixteenth
century. When still in the prime of life he
became impressed with the conviction that
to eat. Acting on this idea, he at about
forty years of age resolved to enter upon q
new course and betake himself to spare
diet and scrupulously regulate his mode of
life, after having, as he says, previously led
life of indulgence in eating and drinking,
and having been endowed with feeble con-
stitution and ''fallen into such as pains in
his stomach, and often stitches and spices of
the gout. attended by what was still worse
an almost continual Glow fever, a stomach
generally out of order and q perpetual
thirst" He also did all that lay in his
power to avoid those evils which we do
not find it 30 easy to remoye-to wit, ha-
passions which appear to have the greatest
influence over our bodies. 'The conss-
quence was that in few days began"
he writes, "to perceive that such a course
agreed with me very well, and by pursuing
it for no less than a year I found myself
(sone persons will not perhaps believe it) en-
tirely freed from all my complaints. I chose
wine suited to my stomach, drinking of it
but the quantity knew I could digest. I
did the same by my meat, as well in regard
to quantity as to quality, accustoming my
self to contrive matters SO as never to clog
my stomach with eating and drinking, but
constantly to rise from the table with a dis
position to eat and drink still more. In this
1 conformed to the proverb which says that
appetite. What with bread, meat, yolk of
an egg and soup, ate as much as weighed in
all twelve ounces, neither more nor less. l
drank but fourteen ounces of wine" In
some respects similar to this is a case report
ed to the College of Physicians by Sir George
Baker in 1857. This eminent physician
stated that he could verify that one Thomas
Wood, miller of Billericay, had maintained
an extraordinary degree of vigor for upwards
of eighteen years upon daily diet consist
| ing of sixteen ounces of -four made into a
pudding with water-no other liquid of any
kind being taken. The very eccentric Dr..
GIynn of Cambridge practiced another form
of abstinence. He rarely or never sat down
| to set meal, but would occasionally appease
hunger by cutting slices off cola joint,
which he would eat standing, without bread
| or vegetables. Lord Byron was remarkably
abstemious, owing to a morbid fear of obesi-
| ty. For a long period of time he lived upon
| soda water and biscuits. At another time,
according to Moore, "a thin slice of bread,
| with tea at breakfast, a light vegetable din
ner, with bottle or two of seltzer water
1 tinged with vim de Grave, and in the evening
1 O cup of green tea, without milk or sugar
formed the whole of his sustenance. The
pangs of hunger he appeased by privately
| chewing tobacco and smoking cigars" II
Greece Byron lived upon dry bread, vegeta
| bles and cheese; and to ascertain the effeet
4 of his dietetics he used to measure his wrist
| and waist every morning, taking medicine il
| he found an increase.
An abstinence club was once established
in the house of grocer in the Strand by &
1 number of gentleman, among whom were
/ Lord @. Cavendish, Sir John PrinRle, Sn
William Watson, I. Turton, III. D., ". Her
berdeen, III. D., and G.. Baker, N. D. Eacf
member paid sixpence per evening for the
use of the groeer's dining room. The clut
| took in one newspaper and the only refresh
| ment allowed was water. Sir Hans Sloane,
once president of the Royal society and oi
the College of Physicians, loved money! SC
much that he hated all good things except
his museum. To save his tea and bread and
butter he gave up his winter soirees in
Bloomsbury Square. Possibly it was the Of
| fence which Handel, the composer, commit
ted of laying hot buttered muffin on one OF
| his books, which decided the exasperated
scientific knight to take this step. "To be
sure it was a careless trick" said the compo
ser, when telling the story; "bud it It'd nc
| monstrous mischief; bud it pode de old poog
| worm treadfully oud of sorts. I offered my
Il pest apologies, but de old miser would nod
4 have done wild 1t. If it had heen a piscuit
it would nod have mattered; bud muffin and
puddsrI All, mine Gott, that is the rub-it
| is the pudderl" Handel continuing, said
| CHOW, mine worthy friend, Sir Hans Sloane
you have a nodable excuse; you may save
| your doast and pudder and lay it to dat un'
| feeling gormandising Germany, and den
knows it will add something to your life by
sparing your burse."