150 



FASTING FASTS. 



was attended with manifest mental imbecility. 

 Nevertheless, with proper regimen, he so far re- 

 covered, as in a few days to be enabled to walk 

 across his room ; and a clergyman who had jirevi- 

 ously been admitted to visit him, dispelled his reli- 

 gious aberrations ; but on the seventh day from the 

 1 1 iiiiur-nctmtnt of this system, his recollection failed, 

 and he expin d on the seventy-eighth from the date 

 of his abstinence. An analogous case has been 

 quoted by the same physician, of an insane person, 

 who survived forty-seven days on a pint and a half of 

 water daily, during which time he obstinately stood 

 thirty-eight days in the same position. From extreme 

 treftKOetiS, he lay down during the remainder, still 

 refusing anything but water ; nor did this extraor- 

 dinary abstinence prove fatal. Perhaps we should 

 find many examples of fasting for a much longer 

 period, on recurring to morbid conditions of the 

 body ; such as that of Janet M* Leod, a young Scot- 

 tish female, who, after epilepsy and fever, remained 

 five years in bed. seldom speaking, and receiving 

 food only by constraint. At length, she obstinately 

 refused all sustenance, her jaws became locked, and, 

 in attempting to force them open, two of her teeth 

 were broken. A small quantity of liquid was intro- 

 duced by the aperture, none of which was swallowed; 

 and dough made of oatmeal was likewise rejected. 

 She slept much, and her head was bent down to her 

 breast. In this deplorable state, the relatives of the 

 patient declared she continued to subsist four years, 

 without their being sensible of her receiving any ali- 

 ment, except a little water ; but, after a longer inter- 

 val, she began to revive, and subsisted on crumbs of 

 bread, with milk or water sucked from the palm of 

 her hand. It is not evident that her convalescence 

 ever was complete ; and it rather is to be inferred 

 that she always remained in a debilitated condition. 

 After these extraordinary instances, chiefly belonging 

 to oi:r own era, to which many more might be added, 

 we shall probably be less incredulous in listening to 

 the accounts of the older authors. 



In regard to the sensations excited by protracted 

 fasting, and its effects on the person of the sufferer, 

 there is a difference resulting from the vigour both of 

 body and mind, to which the influence of climate may 

 be joined ; but the most direful and lasting conse- 

 quences frequently ensue. At first, every substance 

 is ravenously devoured, to appease the cravings of 

 hunger ; every animal, the most loathsome reptiles, 

 are welcome sustenance ; and a paste is baked by the 

 New Hollanders, composed of ants and worms, inter- 

 mixed with the bark of trees. John Lery, who en- 

 dured the extremity of famine in a voyage to Brazil, 

 emphatically declared, that a mouse was more prized 

 in the ship than an ox had been ashore ; and he also 

 informs us, that three or four crowns were paid for 

 each. The natives of New Caledonia swallow lumps 

 of earth to satisfy their hunger, and tie ligatures, 

 continually increasing in tightness, around the abdo- 

 men. They seem to do so with impunity, although 

 the custom of eating earth, in Java, which is done 

 to reduce personal corpulence, is slowly, but invari- 

 ably destructive. Last of all, recourse is had to hu- 

 man flesh, instances of which have occurred in all 

 countries of the habitable world, on occasion of famine 

 from sieges, shipwreck, or the failure of expected 

 crops of grain. During this period, a material alter- 

 ation is taking place in the mind : men become wild 

 and ferocious ; they view each other with malevo- 

 lence ; they are quarrelsome, turbulent, and equally 

 regardless of their own fate as of the safety of their 

 neighbours; they actually resemble so many beasts 

 of prey. 



The sensations of hunger from protracted fasting 

 are not alike in all; or it may be, that immediate 



languor operates strongly on those by whom it is no!, 

 so severely felt. But it is certain that, after a parti- 

 cular time, little inclination for food is experienced, 

 though great desire remains of quenching thirst. 

 Captain Inglefield, of the Centaur, expresses his 

 consolatory feelings on seeing one of his companions 

 perish, that dying of hunger was not so dreadful as 

 imagination had pictured. A survivor of that miser- 

 able shipwreck, during which so many people hung 

 twenty-three days in the shrouds, observes, that he 

 did not suffer much during the first three from want 

 of food ; that, after more had elapsed, he was sur- 

 prised to have existed so long, and concluded tliat 

 each succeeding day would be his last. To these 

 examples maybe added that of captain Kennedy, 

 who considered it singular that, although he tasted 

 neither meat nor drink during eight entire days, he 

 did not feel the sensations of hunger and thirst. 

 Without timely succour, the human frame yields 

 under such privations : idiocy succeeds ferocity, or 

 the sufferer dies raving mad. Should the conse- 

 quences not be fatal, lasting diseases are frequently 

 occasioned by the tone of the different organs being 

 injured, sometimes incurably, and sometimes admit- 

 ting palliation. It is evident, however, from the 

 preceding observations, that protracted fasting is not 

 so destructive as is commonly credited, and that man- 

 kind may, without danger, remain entire days desti- 

 tute of food. Liquids are an effectual substitute for 

 solids in preserving life ; and drenching the body 

 vith salt or fresh water, or laving it copiously on the 

 head, materially contributes in averting death by 

 famine. See Philosophical Transactions (1783) ; 

 Memoirs of the Manchester Society for 1785 (vol. iii.) ; 

 Lerius, Navigationes in Brazilian. ; Asiatic Re- 

 searches (vol. iv. p. 386) ; Syme's Embassy to Ava 

 (p. 130) ; Mackay's Narrative of the Shipwreck of the 

 Juno ; Annual Register for 1768 and 1783 ; Gentle- 

 man's Magazine (1789); Licetus, Dehis gui diu vivunt 

 sine Alimento. 



FASTOLF, SIR JOHN; an English gentleman, who 

 is chiefly memorable as the supposed prototype of 

 Shakspeare's Falstaff. (q. v.) He served with some 

 distinction in Ireland, under Sir Stephen Scrope, who 

 dying hi 1408, Fastolf married his widow, an heiress 

 of the Tibtot family. Her rich estates in Gloucester- 

 shire and Wiltshire he kept in his own possession, to 

 the prejudice of his stepson, who in vain endeavoured 

 to recover them after the death of his mother. Fas- 

 tolf obtained the order of the garter, and, in 142J9, 

 defeated a body of 6000 Frenchmen, at the head of 

 only 1500 men, and brought relief to the English 

 army before Orleans. But, the same year, he tar- 

 nished his laurels at the battle of Patay, by fleeing, 

 panic stricken, from the celebrated Joan of Arc. 

 The regent duke of Bedford deprived him of the 

 garter for this misbehaviour, but soon restored it to 

 him, in consideration of his former services. His 

 death took place in 1469, and he left in the hands of 

 his confessor, Thomas Howes, a Franciscan friar, the 

 sum of .4000, to be expended in the repair of 

 churches, religious houses, &c. 



FASTS. Nobody will deny the good influence 

 which a retirement for some time from this busy and 

 alluring world must have on a person who dedicates 

 this time of retirement to reflection, renouncing all 

 worldly pleasures. This is the origin of fasting, 

 which is deeply rooted in human nature. The great 

 difficulty is, to prevent fasting, if made a general re- 

 ligious ordinance, from becoming, in the case of the 

 multitude, a mere outward form. Abstinence from 

 food, accompanied with signs of humiliation and re- 

 pentance or grief, is to be found more or less in 

 almost all religions. Among the Jews, fasts were 

 numerous ; but they must have all been founded 



