ON TkE DIGESTIVE Ft3NCTI0N, ETC. 



139 



These observations lead us to another anomaly of a more extraordinary 

 iiature still ; and that is, the power which man himself possesses of exist- 

 ing 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 in- 

 dulgent 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 oc- 

 curred shortly afterwards, 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 ex= 

 traordinary fact, in the case of Anne Moore, of Tutbury in Stafl^brdshire, 

 who, in consequence of a great and increasing difficulty in swallowing, at 

 first limited herself to a very small daily portion of bread alone, and on March 

 17, 1807, relinquished even this, allowing herself only occasionally a little 

 tea or water, and in the ensuing September pretended to abstain altogether 

 from Hquids as well as sohds. From the account of Mr. Granger,* a 

 medical practitioner of reputation^ who saw her about two years after- 

 wards, she appears to have suffered very considerably, either from her ab- 

 stinence, or from that general morbid habit which induced her to use ab- 

 stinence. 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 



phere pervades the pores of the sand or margin pretty freely; but that it is act extricated from 

 the circumfluent water so as to pervade the poles 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 

 temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. They die speedily if the water b* lower than 

 320 Fahr. or higher than 108°: thatthelongestdurationof 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 minotes at 108°. 



The most favourable point in the temperatQre of the atmosphere is also 32°. If t>;e sea^ 

 son have maintained this point for some days antecedently to the frog's being plunged under 

 water, itself of 32<^, the animal will live from 24 to 60 hours. De I'lnfluence des Agehs Phy» 

 siques sur la Vie ; also, Meraoires sur I'Asphyxic, &c. 1817. Paris, 8vo. 1824. 

 Edinburgh Medo aEd Surg. Journal. No. xi^. July 1809. p. 



