1809.) Extraordinary Instance of Abstinence from Food. \ 587 
seems to have undergone no material al- 
teration since its erection, now seventeen 
hundred years ago. 
Segovia presenting no other objects pe- 
culiarly interesting, [ retraced my steps 
by the pass of Guadarama, paid another 
visit to the admirable Nuestra Sénora del 
pez of Rafael, and other curiosities of 
the Escurial ; and arrived, highly grati- 
fied with my tour, at Madrid on the even- 
ing of the 4th of December. 
(Lo be continued. ) 
ee 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
- SIR, 
HE following extraordinarycase of ab- 
stinence from food, will, l hope, be a 
sufficient excuse for me wishing, for its 
insertion in your valuable and widely cir- 
culating Magazine. Should you think the 
subject contrary to the information gene- 
rally conveyed through the medium of 
your publication, I trust the singularity 
of the case will of itself remove all objec- 
tions to itsadmission. However, I think 
I can safely affirm the novelty of such a 
case cannot fail of being acceptable to 
every one of your readers, as it conveys 
such astonishing powers of the human 
constitution : 
Case.—Ann Moor, aged 58, a poor 
woman of Tutbury, in the county of 
Stafford, has lived twenty months without 
food. However, not being (like many 
others) perfectly satisfied with the com- 
mon report in the neighbourhood respect- 
ing her case, I took an opportunity of 
visiting her personally, in order to ascer- 
tain the exact particulars of her case; 
when I had, by her own statement, the 
following account of her miserable con- 
dition :—That in the year 1804 she was 
attacked with a very severe illness, which, 
I concluded (from her account), must 
have been an inflammation of some of the 
viscera of the abdomen. [rom this she 
gradually recovered (by the-assistance of 
the surgeon in the place), after thirteen 
weeks confinement, After this she bad 
(the same year), at intervals (I believe 
regular), violent fits, accompanied with 
a spasmodic affection of the stomach, 
The succeeding year, 1805, she was 
again attacked with a second inflamma- 
tion of some part of the abdominal vis- 
cera, which was not quite so violent as 
the former; which, after she was per- 
fectly recovered from this inflammatory 
disease, being gradual, after eleven wecks 
confinement, she found it had materially 
mitigated the spasms and fits which she 
aad been accustomed to support the pre- 
3 
ceding year. But what must have been 
a still wreater affliction to her, was, that 
her appetite and digestive powers of the 
stomach were considerably impaired, par= 
ticularly the latter, so that, from the irri- 
tability of that organ, every thing was re- 
jected that she took, except that mild 
aliment, tea, miik, puddings, or vege- 
tables; and of these she took such a 
small proportion, thatit was believed, by 
all her attendants, she would soon fall a 
victim for the want of that nourishmest 
‘which the system requires to supply the 
wastesvof nature. In this state she ¢on- 
tinued until the spring of 1806, when she 
undertook to superintend the daily dress- 
ing of a fistula wound of a poor boy’s back, 
from the offensive nature of which, 
(and the boy’s mability to procure the at- 
tendance of a surgeon), every one dee 
clined lending their assistance, except 
this poor woman, wlio said it was a cha- 
rity which the poor boy’s case demanded: 
she now, with uuremitting care and at- 
tention, applied herself to the daily 
dressing of the wounds, with those deter- 
gent applications which she’ alone had 
procured for the purpose. It was not 
antil the warm months of August and 
September that this disagreeable engage- 
ment appeared to affect her, when she 
found it impossible to divest herself of 
the idea that the offensive matter which 
issued from the wounds was present to 
her organs of taste and simell; which, 
from the sympathy existing between the 
stomach and those parts, made her aver- 
sion to take food become still greater, 
and for several days she was. observed to 
be incapable of supporting herself in the 
presence of any ting that was offered her 
in the form of food. In the month of 
October, the boy fell a sacrifice to his 
misfortunes ; yet the poor woman still 
continued (though released from her an- 
pleasant office) to exist until the 24th of 
February, 180” only taking one penny- 
loaf, with tea, without either cream or 
sugar, which trifling allowance of bread 
generally served her fourteen days: she 
then (February 24th) declined taking any 
kind of solid food whatever, her only be- 
verage becoming that of water and tea, 
which she generaily took upon feeling any 
nausea at her stomach. After this time 
she had regular discharges, by vomit, 
every twenty days, of yellow water from 
the stomach, which appeared to cansist 
of the common secretion (gastric juice) of 
the stomach, intermixed with a small 
propertion of bile. From the woman's 
testumeny being always discredited, she 
did 
