626 
ABSTINENCE FROM FOOD. 
Confouiens in Poitou, who lived three years without food. Abstin. 
Confolentan. — Albertus Magnus says, he saw a woman at Cologne 
who often lived tw^enty, and sometimes thirty days without food, 
and that he saw a hypochondriacal man, who lived without food for 
seven weeks, drinking only a draught of water every other day. De 
Animalibus, lib. vii. — Hildanus relates the case of a girl who 
lived many years without food or drink. This subject, he says, had 
the abdomen wasted and retracted towards the spine, but without any 
hardness. She did not void any thing by the bowels. Cent. V. Obs. 
Chirurg. 33. — Sylvius says, there was a young woman in Spain, aged 
twenty-tw^o years, who never ate any food, but lived entirely on water, 
and that there was a girl in Narbonne, and another in Germany, who 
lived three years in good health, without any kind of food or drink. 
Consil. Adver. Farnem. — It is said that Democritus lived to the age 
of one hundred and nine years, and that in the latter part of his life 
he subsisted almost entirely, for forty days at one time, according to 
some writers, on smelling honey and hot bread. 
To these testimonies it may afford some amusement to the reader, 
and at the same time furnish some curious data for the study of phy- 
siology, if we subjoin a few facts more in detail. — 
In a former visit to this place, (Barmouth, July 18, 1770,) my 
curiosity,” says Pennant, “ was excited to examine into the truth of 
a surprising relation of a woman, in the parish of Clynian, who had 
fasted a most supernatural length of time. I took boat, and had a most 
pleasant passage up the harbour, charmed with the beauty of the 
shores, intermixed with woods, verdant pastures, and corn-fields. I 
landed, and, after a short walk, found in a farni called Tydden Bach, 
the object of my excursion, Mary Thomas, who lodged here, and 
was kept with great humanity and neatness. She was of the age of 
forty-seven, of a good countenance, very pale, thin, but not so much 
emaciated as might be expected from the strangeness of the circum- 
stances I am going to relate. Her eyes weak, her voice low, deprived ‘ 
of the use of her lower extremities, and quite bed-ridden ; her pulse 
rather strong ; her intellect clear and sensible. 
“ On examining her, she informed me, that at the age of seven she 
had some eruptions like the measles, which grew^ confluent and uni- 
versal ; and she became so sore that she could not bear the least 
touch. She received some ease by the application of a sheep’s-skin, 
just taken from the animal ; after this she was seized at spring and 
fall with swellings and inflammations, during which time she was con- 
. fined to her bed ; but in the intervals could walk about, and once 
went to Holy-well in hopes of cure. 
“ When she w'as about twenty-seven years of age she was attacked 
with the same complaint, but in a more violent manner ; and during 
two years and a half remained insensible, and took no manner of 
nourishment, notwithstanding her friends forced open her mouth with 
a spoon, to get something down ; but the moment the spoon was 
taken away, her teeth met, and closed with snapping and violence ; 
during that time she flung up vast quantities of blood. 
“ She vvell remembers the return of her senses, and her knowledge 
of every body about her. She thought she had slept but a night, and 
