ON THE DIGESllvE FUNCTION, &c 



135 



. These observations lead us to another anomaly of a more extraordinary- 

 nature still ; and that is, the power which man himself possesses of existing 

 without food, under certain circumstances, for a very long period of time. 

 This is often found to take place in cases of madness, especially that of 

 the melancholy kind, in which the patient resolutely refuses either to eat or 

 drink for many weeks together, with little apparent loss either of bulk or 

 strength. 



There is a singular history of Cicely de Ridgeway, preserved among the 

 Records in the Tower of London, which states, that in the reign of Edward 

 III., having been condemned for the murder of her husband, she remained for 

 forty days without either food or drink. This was ascribed to a miracle, and 

 the king condescended in consequence to grant a pardon. 



The Cambridgeshire farmer's wife, who, about twenty years ago, was buried 

 under a snow-storm, continued ten or twelve days without tasting any thing 

 but a little of the snow which covered her. ' But in various other cases we 

 have proofs of abstinence from food having been carried much farther, and 

 without serious evil. In the Edinburgh Medical Essays for 1720, Dr. Eccles 

 makes mention of a beautiful young lady, " about sixteen years of age," who, 

 in consequence of the sudden death of an indulgent father, was thrown into 

 a state of tetanus, or rigidity of all the muscles of the body, and especially 

 those of deglutition, so violent as to render her incapable of swallowing for 

 two long and distinct periods of time ; in the first instance for thirty-four, and 

 in the second, which occurred shortly afterward, for fifty-four days ; during 

 " all which time, her first and second fastings, she declared," says Dr. Eccles, 

 " she had no sense of hunger or thirst ; and when they were over, she had 

 not lost much of her flesh." 



In our own day we have had nearly as striking an instance of this extraordi- 

 nary fact, in the case of Ann Moore, of Tutbury, in Staffordshire, who, in 

 consequence of a great and increasing difliculty in swallowing, at first limited 

 herself to a very small daily portion of bread alone, and on March 17th, 1807, 

 relinquished even this, allowing herself only occasionally a little tea or water, 

 and in the ensuing September pretended to abstain altogether from liquids as 

 v/ell as solids. From the account of Mr. Granger,* a medical practitioner 

 of reputation, who saw her about two years afterward, she appears to have suf- 

 fered very considerably, either from her abstinence or from that general morbid 

 habit which induced her to use abstinence. He says, indeed, that her mental 

 faculties were entire, her voice moderately strong, and that she could join in 

 conversation without undergoing any apparent fatigue : but he says, also, that 

 her pulse was feeble and slow ; that she was altogether confined to her bed ; 

 that her limbs were extremely emaciated ; that convulsions attacked her on 

 so slight an excitement as surprise, and that she had then very lately lost the 

 use of her lower limbs. 



It afterward appeared, that in this account of herself she was guilty of 

 some degree of imposition, in order to attract visiters, and obtain pecuniary 

 grants. Dr. Henderson, another medical practitioner, of deserved repute in 

 the neighbourhood, had suspected this, and published his suspicions :\ and an 



and heaps of sand are porous enough to admit so much air as is requisite to support the life of lizards, 

 toads, and other amphibials of the batrachian family : but that they all perish if surrounded by mercury, 

 or even water, so as to intercept the air by their being encompassed by an exhausted receiver. In boxes 

 of mortar or sand, however, they live much longer than in boxes plunged under water. The probable 

 cause is, that the air of the atmosphere pervades the pores of the sand or margin pretty fVeely ; but that it 

 is not extricated from the circumfluent water so as to pervade the pores of the box buried in it. This, 

 however, is not the explanation offered by Dr. Edwards. He found also that frogs will live a longer or 

 shorter period of time under water, according to the temperature of the water, and the previous tempera- 

 ture of the surrounding atmosphere. They die speedily if the water be lower than 32° Fahr. or higher 

 than 108° : that the longest duration of life is at 32'^ at which point life will continue for several hours; 

 that its duration diminishes with the elevation of the scale above this point, and that it is extinguished in 

 a few minutes at 108". 



The most favourable point in the temperature of the atmosphere is also 32". If the season have main 

 tained this point for some days autecedently to the frog's being plunged under water, itself of 32°, the ani- 

 mal will live from 24 to CO hours. De I'lnfluence des Agens Physiques sur la Vie • also, M6moires sur 

 l'A»phyxie, &c. 1817. Paris, 8vo. 1824. ' 



* Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, No. xix. July, 1809, p. 319. 



t An Examination of the Imposture of Ann Moore, called the Faating Woman of Tutbury, &c. By 

 Alexander Henderson, M.D. 8vo. 1813. 



