Br. Perchal on the EfeSis of Famine ^ ^c. 489- 



This afFefling cataftrophe coincides, in 

 a ftriking manner, with an obfervation of 

 Hippocrates, 'That moji of thofe, who neither eat 

 nor drink for Jeven days, die within that period. 

 And that though they Jurvivey Jo as afterwards to 

 fake noiiriflrment, their former fafling will prove 

 fatal to them. * Yet it is evident, that the re- 

 mark, of this faithful recorder of fadls, was 

 founded on experience too limited, to give it 

 validity. For we have many well attefted 

 accounts of longer continued abftinence, with- 

 out deilruftion to life. Sir William Hamilton^ 

 in his narrative of the earthquakes in Italy, A.D 

 1783, mentions a girl, of fixteen years of age, 

 who remained eleven days without food, under 

 the ruins of a houfe at Oppido. She had a 

 child in her arms, five or fix months old, who 

 died the fourth day. A light, through a fmall 

 chafm, enabled her to afcertain the time of her 

 confinement, and (he gave a very clear relation 

 of her fufFerings. When Sir William Hamilton 

 faw her, fhe did not appear to be in bad health, 

 drank eafily, but with difficulty fwallowed any 

 thing folid, f In cafes of this kind, is it not 

 probable that the body may be fupplied with 

 fluids from the external air, by the exertioa 

 of fome extraordinary powers in the lymphatic 



* Ilippocrat. de Carnibus. Sed. III. 



t Philofophical Tranfadions, vol. LXXIII. p. i6g. 



fyftem ^ 



