LONG FASTINGS AND STARVATION. 545 



on the 8tli of September, 1825, with an absolute repulsion against 

 food, and thus continued till the day of her death, after a lethargic 

 sleep of three months, on the 19th of March, 1828. The autopsy 

 disclosed a contraction of the sigmoid flexure of the colon. One 

 of the most extraordinary cases on record is that of the Dutch 

 hysteric Angelina de Vlies, forty-one years old, who continued 

 without food from the 10th of March, 1822, to 1826. She was sub- 

 ject to cramps and tremors, and was very weak, and not able to 

 rise without help. Bourneville and D'Olier tell of an idiotic child 

 who at two years of age lived three weeks, and at seven years 

 twenty-eight days, on nothing but water and broth. In many 

 similar cases, the patients have eaten occasionally, but only the 

 minimum quantity indispensable for the maintenance of life. 

 Thus, a woman cited by Lase'gue only ate during a year what an 

 ordinary person would require for two days. 



One of the characteristics of cases of this kind is the extraor- 

 dinary perversion of appetite. An insatiable craving prevails in 

 some of the patients, a loathing in others. Perversions of the 

 sexual passion have also been remarked. "With these fantastic 

 tastes is associated an exceptionally strong and enduring power of 

 resistance. 



There was for a long time at the Salpetriere a woman named 

 Etchverry, who had hemiplegia on one side and contracture on the 

 other. Her hysteria should apparently have provoked a general 

 denutrition, but it did not. She would not eat, and had to be fed 

 artificially. Her excretions were marked by an extreme deficiency 

 of urea. There was no deception in her case, for she was under 

 constant watch. 



I have observed in a very precise experiment the diminution 

 in the phenomena of nutrition in hysterics. M. Hannot and my- 

 self, studying two hystero-epileptic cases at the Salpetriere, found 

 that the patient in a condition of lethargy received only four litres 

 of air into her lungs in sixteen minutes, and made only eight in- 

 spirations in thirty-six minutes. This marvelous slackening of 

 the respiratory phenomena constitutes a real hibernation in man, 

 resulting from the absence of stimulation of the nervous system. 



Observations have been made of a disease of somnolence. 

 M. Charcot has recently published an account of a case, and MM. 

 Semelaigne and Gelineau have published another. An irresistible 

 torpor takes possession of the patients, who fall into a sleep in 

 which all the phenomena of nutrition are slackened, but the sleep- 

 ers wake occasionally and take food or perform physical offices. 



The fakirs of India, who allow themselves to be buried alive, 

 belong to the same category. They submit to extraordinary mor- 

 tifications, eat but little, abstain from meats, and use curious arts 

 to empty their stomachs. Having hypnotized themselves, they 



vol. xxxvi. 35 



