The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1898-04-02

Abstinence.
White-haired and 60 years old, DR..
Henry S. Tanner, the famous faster,
is paying his first visit to Detroit. The
doctor is, however, in full possession
of mental and physical health, and
saws he would be ready and willing to
make an attempt to beat or equal his
record at any time, says the Detroit
Free Press. The fact u.s." he said, in
a semi-jocular way, Il have my back
m over the boast of that woman in
New York tina, ahe can beat me. She
seems to think hat l am a nobody, but
she has yet to prove by something bet
ter than talk that she is ahead of me-"
The doctor, it will be remembered, fast
ed forty days and nights in New York
City. In the first fourteen days he alb
stained from using even water. But he
felt that he could not continue longer
on that line, and began to walk every
day to Central Park to drink from n
spring. No" he continued, Il felt not
the slightest i'll effects from the fast.
On the other hand, | think it rather re-
freshed me, once | had begun to eat
and sleep in normal allowances. l first
tasted in Minneapolis a few years be-
fore 1880, the year of the celebrated
fast. | was a sufferer from cardiac
rheumatism, and attempted to fast as
a means of relief. For eleven days l
kept it up, and the action of the heart
actually resumed it's healthy tone and
all pain passed from that region. l did
not break the fast after | felt this eff
feet, however, and determined to o n
tinue it as long as l could. At the end
of forty-two days l felt that l had
enough. However, this is not accepted
as a record, as only my friends knew Of
it. The New York fast was held un-
der the eyes of several physicians.
During the forty days l lost only thir-
ty-eight pounds. When | started ev-
erybody predicted that l could not last
more than twelve days. At the end of
my fast | received a cable message
from the queens physician advising
me to take not more than five drops
of milk as my first meal. One doctor
in New York advised me to take as a
square meal a lick at a postage stamp.
Still another thought that this would
overtax my stomach, and advised a
good, long smell at some well-done
toast. One and all predicted that my
stomach would prove to be a wreck
My digestive apparatus, they claimed
was i~rretrievably ruined. l might con
slider that my days were numbered
few. On the morning of the last day
of the fast a small boy came up to M
nibbling a ripe peach. l asked him t.
let me hold it. | put it to my lips.
wanted to taste of it, but that would
give everybody a chance to say that
had weakened, and | wanted to las
out forty days, as | had promised. Yol
can imagine that it required some eX
ertion of the will to hand it back tt
him; but | did it. l asked him t.
come back at noon, when my time
would be up. He did so, a matronlJ
woman with him. l saw her put hel
hand in her pocket and take from it
big, ripe, yellow peach and give it Il
him. l suppose she was his mother
Then the little fellow trotted over tt
where | sat and an immense Grove
looked on as | grabbed it from hi
hand and tool one big, long, juicy bit
from it. The memory of that 1avo
fingers with me yet. l devoured ever
bit of the fruit. The general supposi
tion is that my first eatable after tn
fast was a watermelon. This aros
from the fact that l had always de
clared that would begin on a melon
Not long after the peach incident the
brought me three pints of milk, whic
l drank, and an immense Georgia wa
termelon, weighing about forty pounds
Between that time and midnight | ha
devoured all Of it, and felt much re
freshed. | did not care to put NOR
solid food in my stomach. In due tim
came to eat meat and vegetables, an
became, to all intents and purposes,
rational human being. Yes, the praC
tice of medicine derived some goo
from my achievement. The physician
learned that the use of alcoholic stim
ulants was not necessary to arrest tn
wasting of tissue. | used none in m
fast, and ever since then the use of tn
stuff in the sick room has been grad
ually decreased" When miners al
immured in a iii and shipwrecke
sailors are marooned on a barren is
and-nothing to eat in either case
they usually last about twelve day
The doctor says this is because the
nave been accustomed to hear of tn;
being the limit of life without sust,
nance, so they give up and allow deaf
to take possession of them, wherea
had they the will power, they coul
stave it off as long as he did, and pc
haps longer, and give others a chan
to save them.