Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1880-08-11 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

TANNIR.S FORTY DAYS' FAST. An Eoglishmth who has become naturalised in the United States, and who will be known ! as Dr Tanner, the famous faster, has accomplished the extraordinary feat of fasting from solid food for forty days. Some clever people are asking what is the good of an attempt of this sort? On similar lines every fret of strength and endurance may be cavilled at in the some way. It is, we think, of importance to know that men, IA the exercise of the will, can /atheist without Cad for lengthened periods. Dr Tanner's forty days' fast, which came to • close on Saturday, at noon, upsets all preconceived medical theory. not °nit' as to the 11/O-ita of human endurance, bat as to the beat 1 means of resuscitating nature. Dr Tanner's I feat sets all the rules of the schools at Monte. New York telegrams state that when the steam I whistle blew to denote that his flat was over I Dr Tanner jumped on a chair and swallowed a I peach, notwithstanding the remonstrance of : the watchers. On being weighed Dr Tanner : IWM found to scale 120/Ib. His pulse was 99, ; respiration 17. Descending the weighing scale Dr Tanner immediately drank • glass of milk and called for water melon. The physicians protested that he would kill himaelf, but Dr Tanner continued to out the water melon. After drinking an ounce of Hungarian wine, he ate half a pound cf beef-steak, swallowing all but the tough parts. His stomach retained all the food that was taken, and Dr Tanner suffered no nausea- He appeared to be in excellent splits, and said he would be ready for business by llooday. The total weight Dr Tenser boobs* in the forty days is thirty-six panda. The total qnantity of water he drank is 6671 ounces. His respiration varied from 13 to 18. his muscular powers from 194 to 158- The temperatures show slight variations AM the normal point, and the loss of water ! by the lungs was much less than the ZPOSORUYO : IRIII•ny giveu by physiological aothorities ' Dr. Tanner's fast—as has been pointed *all in several quarters—is paralleled by that of a i warm, Cicely Ridgway, as recorded in justaid mord.. A writer th " Saturday Night,• forgotten magazine belonging to the early ; pert of the present century, but lull of curious ; natter, states that the circumstances of this : fist are thus mentioned in "an old work cootaming the reporta of many extraordinary I triala." " In the 81st year of the reign of that ' glorious Prince Edward 111., and that of our ; Lord 1847, there was one Cicely de Ridgway, or Rygewa, indicted for the murder of her has- , band, but she refusing to plead and eontinn. ing mute, notwithstanding all the arguments and threats the judges could use to her, they adjudged her at last to fast forty days together I in clot/e prism, without any meat or drink. I This she actually did. For proof of this ex'trordinary abstinenee I shall produce a translation of the record lodged in the Tower, which runs thosi—•The King, to all bailiffs wed others his liege subjects to whom these penosto shall come, ito , greeting. Be it heowu onto you that, whereas Cecely, who yea the wife of John Rygeway, was lately intraded for the murder of the said Jobe, her Wetland, and brought to her trial for the mawr before our loved and faithful Henry Orme and his brother Judges at Nottingham, bet that, coatinoing mute and refusing to plead Ile the said indictment, she was sentenced to ha committed to close custody, withont any *Steals or drink, for the space of .10 dam which she miraculously, and even contrary to the course of human nature, went through, as we are well and fully thawed from persons of oodoubted credit. We do, therefore, for that mason, and from a principle of piety to the glory of God, and of the blessed Virgin His mother, by whom it is thought this miracle • .as wrought, out of Our special gintee and : favour, pardon the said Cecely from the further execution of the sentence upon her, and  our will and pleasure is that she be freed horn the said prison, and no frrther trouble given her upon the account of the said sentence, 5,c. In witness whereof, die."