Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1906-09-13
FEATS OF
DEPRIVATION


nourishment for forty-five.
The latter record holder is Herr Sacco
who has publicly tasted in Vienna fol-
forty days and nights, in London fol
forty-hve and in Paris for forty-two
lnclosed in ventilated glass chamber
so as to be under observation all the
time, watched day and night by wit.
nesses, he took no food for 1880 hours
In that time the average man would have
taken about one hundred. and thirty-fve
meals. --- >.~-
However, this. is~fiet real record foi
complete abstinence. for Sacco allows
himself plenty of mineral water and CT
garettes, which are in his contract.
WITHOUT FOOD AND DRINK!
Going entirely without food and drink
is a very different thing. and the aver
age strong mans limit, before death
overtakes him, is Under six days. The
record for a trained faster" allowing
nothing at all to pass his lips during the
trial, was made at San Francisco in 1906
by John Culpepper, British subject
who was most carefully watched dur
ing the fast. He undertook. for a stake
of ST ,ooo to hold out for ten days, with
$3.50 for each day over that limit He
did not give in until the end of the elev-
enth day, and it is not likely that any
human being will ever hold out so long
again.
The greatest length recorded of en-
forced starvation, by ship-wrccked men
or castaways, belongs to an Irish seaman
named Mulcahy, who was cast adrift in
an open bort alone, at the laundering
of the bark Pamela. in the Pacific. eight
years ago. It is certain that he had no
food or water with him, and he was
picked tip seven and half days later by
an American ship.
SLEEPLEsS FOR SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY
TWO HOURS.
Existing on food and no liquid Is a
very different thing from taking liauid
and no food, as Sacco did The former
trial is much the worse of the two, and
the record time for which any man has
held out in such case is fourteen days.
Cramer, German, did ii once at Mu-
Mich.
The average length OF time during
which an ordinary person in healthy
state can go without sleep is sevcnty-four
hours, and this has been found the limit
that men can reach in emergencies, such
as disasters at sea and imminent peril
that make it absolutely necessary not to
relax vigilance. Between seventy and
seventy-five hours is the record, and the
toughest man can keep awake no longer,
and will fall asleep, even though his life
deDendS on wake fI,lnesc
A Frenchman named Deroulede, in
one of the Paris hospitals. is recorded
TO have suffered twenty-eight days and
nights of complete wakefulness, but at
The end of it he died of exhaustion, and
so the record cannot stand. There is
one man, of twenty-nine years. now liv-
ing in England, who has never slept since
he was born: his case has frequently
been described in the papers and by doc
tors, but this example is strictly a
freak" and cannot be compared with
ordinary records.
Fidgety people will regard with hor-
ror the achievement of Angela de Silva
Spanish girl who, partly for stakes and
partly as an advertisement. remained in
sort of cage at the Argyll Rooms in
London. some nine years ago, for fifty
five days and nights without moving
hand or foot, or changing her position,
seated on chair. She was attended and
fed by her sister, and various wagers
having been made on the performance,
she was kept watch over, day and
night, by independent witnesses.
WORSE THAN PENAL sERvITuDE.
There is no great merit in the per-
formance, perhaps. but it is an excep-
tionally trying one. The notable point
was that the lady was not in trance
of any kind, but in full possession of her
senses.
frances are very different affairs, and
the principal one recorded lasted nine
weeks. The subject was all English lady,
Miss Naomi Smythe. of Norton, who lay
in state of complete unconsciousness
during the whole OF that time, and was
visited by over dozen distinguished
medical men interested in the case.
Nourishment was artifcially given, as
the trance naturally caused much anx-
iety for the life of the patient, who, how
ever, was finally restored to conscious
ness and recovered. In this case life re-
manned almost suspended throughout the
nine weeks.
But apart from frances, all Europeans
are easily beaten at the game of remain
ing motionless, by an Indian fakir or
"holy man," named Chundra DALI, of
Benares, who was strapped in an up
right position to an open framework,
eighteen years ago, and has never moved
limb or been released from his bonds
to this day. He is daily fed and tended
by his disciples" -.
WHERE MAN BEATS ANIMAL.
All warm-blooded life, is supposed to
perish in temperature of IS degrees
below zero, and the majority succumb
long way short of that. A strong man,
if sufficiently clothed, may just exist at
such temperature, but only just. How
ever, Russian named Karkoff, in one Of
the few experiments of this kind. tried,
actually survived an artificial ternpera-
ture of 90 degrees in the St. Petersburg
laboratories, after several Arctic species
of animals had proved themselves unable
to stand it. In the Arctic regions the