DR TANNELRAS BAST. 283 
ration. In modern times numerous cases are on record where religious enthusiasts 
have imitated the example of those sacred personages, but success has been rare. 
The experience of physiologists, derived from the most careful and accurate 
experiments carried on for centuries by the most scientific men of succeeding pe- 
riods, proves beyond question that the average man cannot live without food more 
than about ten days, and those persons and those editors of newspapers who 
think and say that this feat of Dr. Tanner’s upsets the theories and reverses the 
teachings of physiologists and medical men, merely show their ignorance of the 
amount of labor, time and skill bestowed upon by such men their researches. 
To the question cuz bono? so often propounded during Dr. Tanner’s fast, 
there have been many answers offered, the principal of which amount to this: 
ist, We all eat and drink too much; znd, Fasting may be employed as a thera- 
peutic agent. To the first of these it may be replied that to eat too little is at 
least as direct a violation of the laws of nature as to eat too much, and to the 
second it may be said that from the days of Esculapius until now, the best physi- 
cians have prescribed fasting in all diseases or injuries of the stomach or intestines, 
as well as in many other diseases of an inflammatory character. 
Among the best articles that we have seen on this subject is one in the Sczen- 
tific American, which we copy: 
‘‘That his experiment is not altogether useless, as is maintained by some, we 
will try to elucidate, notwithstanding we agree that the sacrifice and danger he 
exposes himself to appear so great that it is doubtful if they will be compensated 
for by the physiological and pathological lessons to be learned by it. 
His fast has, in the first place, proved the mistake of those who judged all 
men alike, and reasoned that, because a weak, hysteric, and ill fed girl of 18, 
perhaps consumptive besides, died within two weeks from starvation, as soon as 
she was carefully-watched, therefore nobody could be without food for a period 
of forty days, forgetting that the case is quite different where we have a man of 
between 4o and 50, the age of maximum resistance, a man well fed, of whom the 
weight is far above the average for his size, and who was provided with a copious 
layer of adipose tissue around his body, a man who had practiced fasting for 
Sanitary purposes, finding it the best way for him to cure gastric derangements, 
for which he had a liability, and who had gradually increased the time of fasting 
until, at his last fast in Minneapolis, he had extended it to forty-two days. This 
was not believed, and deception suspected, hence a challenge of $1,000 if he 
succeeded when carefully watched. Dr. Tanner accepted, but the challenger 
backed out under some pretext, and Dr. Tanner, to save his reputation and prove 
his theory, came on and submitted for nothing to the task under the eye of care- 
ful watchers. 
It must be conceded that few persons would possess such a strong will and 
determination to persist in subduing all appetite, and disregard the no doubt 
exceedingly disagreeable and perhaps distressing feelings consequent to total 
abstinence from food; but Dr. Tanner possesses this determination in the highest 
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