A FINE FELLOW. 
529 
the patient in this case was nourished and maintained in that state in 
which she was found; and having discussed the matter at large, he 
is of opinion that she drew, by resorption, such alimentary particles 
from the atmosphere as were sufficient for the nutrition of the body, 
and that the excretions were likewise replaced by the skin, 
“ However incredible and miraculous this fact may seem, yet we 
find similar instances recorded by several authors, viz. by Haller, 
Prichter, Swieten, Hufeland, &c. In the London Magaziiie for August, 
1796, there is likewise an account of a young woman, twenty-four 
years of age, who had fasted for two years, and whose excretions 
were also entirely suppressed.” — London Medical and Physical Jour- 
nal, vol iv. p. 87. 
“ A French officer of infantry, who had retired from service, and 
become deranged, took it in his head to refuse food, and continued 
in that determination from December 25 till February 9, drinking 
only a pint and a half of water daily, with a few drops of aniseed- 
liquor in each glass, fill the thirty-ninth day, from which time till 
the forty-seventh day he took nothing whatever. Till the thirty- 
eighth day, too, he remained out of bed ; but weakness at length 
obliged him to lie down. The return to food was followed by a tem- 
porary cure of his insanity.” — -Hist, de V Academic des Sciences, 1769, 
p. 45. 
In the Philosophical Transactions we have an account of four col- 
liers, who were confined twenty-four days in a coal-pit, at Herstol, 
near Liege, with nothing to support them but water ; and in the Me- 
dical Commentaries (Dec. vol. iv. p. 360.) there is a history of a girl 
who had lost her way, and remained eighteen days on a barren moor, 
in the island of Lewis, where she could not possibly have had any 
other kind of sustenance. Mr. Miller, who relates the case, saw her 
two hours after she was found, and describes her as much emaciated. — 
In fact, proofs abound as to the possibility of maintaining life for a 
considerable time, and under the most unfavourable circumstances, on 
small quantities of water or other liquids. Jejuni magis sitiiint, 
quam esuriunt. — The feeling of hunger, if not appeased by food, often 
ceases altogether; but the feeling of thirst becomes constantly more 
urgent, and, if the body be at the same time under the influence of 
heat, it produces the most aggravated distress. 
A Fine Fellow.’' 
Mr. Creech in his second letter to Sir T, Sinclair, annexed to his 
Statistical Account of Edinburgh, has drawn the following striking 
contrast between the fine fellow of 1763 and of 1783 : — “ In 1763, a 
young man was termed a fine fellow, who to a well-informed and ac- 
complished mind, added elegance of manners and a conduct guided 
by principle ; one who would not have injured the rights of the 
meanest individual ; who contracted no debts that he could not pay, 
and thought every breach of morality unbecoming the character of a* 
gentleman ; who studied to be useful so far as his opportunity or 
abilities enabled him. — In 1783, the term fine fellow was applied to 
one who could drink three bottles, who discharged ail debts of honour, 
3 X 
