There is an account taken
from a document in the Vatican of a man living in 1306, in the
reign of Pope Clement V, who fasted for two years. McNaughton
mentions Rubin Kelsey, a medical student afflicted with
melancholia, who voluntarily fasted for fifty-three days,
drinking copiously and greedily of water. For the first six weeks
he walked about, and was strong to the day of his death.
Hammond has proved many of the reports of "fasting girls" to have
been untrustworthy. The case of Miss Faucher of Brooklyn, who was
supposed to have taken no food for fourteen years, was
fraudulent. He says that Ann Moore was fed by her daughter in
several ways; when washing her mother's face she used towels wet
with gravy, milk, or strong arrow-root meal. She also conveyed
food to her mother by means of kisses. One of the "fasting
girls," Margaret Weiss, although only ten years old, had such
powers of deception that after being watched by the priest of the
parish, Dr. Bucoldianus, she was considered free from juggling,
and, to everybody's astonishment, she grew, walked, and talked
like other children of her age, still maintaining that she used
neither food nor drink. In several other cases reported all
attempts to discover imposture failed.
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