623 
THE FRENCH EXPERIMENTS OE DEPRIVING HORSES 
OE EOOD. 
The Echo of August 9th, 'alluding to Dr. Tanner’s pretended 
fast, quotes the following :—“ The Schweizer Militarzeitung , 
noticing the fasting experiment of Dr. Tanner, says that a 
similar cruel attempt was made with a number of horses in 
Paris, in the spring of 1876. There was, indeed, this 
difference between the tw r o cases—that the fast was forced 
upon the poor quadrupeds without their consent, and that 
there was pretence of utility about the French experiment. 
The aim, as it was stated at the time, was to discover how 
long horses could go without food in the event of the scarcity 
which accompanies a state of siege. The following results 
were obtained from the inhuman experiment: 
“It was proved beyond all doubt that a horse can hold out 
for tw 7 enty-five days without any solid nourishment, providing 
it is supplied with sufficient and good drinking water. 
“A horse can barely hold out for five days without water, 
even though it is supplied with regular food. 
“ If a horse is well fed for ten days, but insufficiently pro¬ 
vided with water throughout the same period, it will not 
outlive the eleventh day. One horse, from which water had 
been entirely withheld for three days, drank on the fourth 
day sixty litres of water within three minutes. A horse 
wffiich received no solid nourishment for twelve days was 
nevertheless in a condition on the twelfth day of its fast to 
draw a load of two hundred and seventy-nine kilos. 
“ We believe that such a set of experiments, if attempted 
in England, w 7 ould be arrested in their course by the inter¬ 
ference of the law, and deservedly so, in spite of the miserable 
plea of scientific and military utility. One fact comes out 
clearly from them, and inferentially also from Dr. Tanner’s 
feat—namely, a modern confirmation of the old Greek 
saying, ‘ Water is the best of everything.’ The Paris Cor¬ 
respondent of the Bader Nachrichten says that Dr. Tanner 
lias found an imitator in Lyons in the person of a young 
physician. He has undertaken to fast for a fortnight. If 
he accomplishes the feat he is to receive one hundred louis 
d’ors. If he breaks down before the term ends he is to pay 
a hundred francs a day from the day of his failure to the 
close of the specified fast.” 
