Until the second day he
was intensely hungry, but after that time was consumed by a
burning thirst; he shouted four or five hours every day, hoping
that he might be heard. After this he became insensible and
remembered nothing until he awakened in the hospital where, under
careful treatment, he finally recovered.
Fodere mentions some workmen who were buried alive fourteen days
in a cold, damp cavern under a ruin, and yet all lived. There is
a modern instance of a person being buried thirty-two days
beneath snow, without food. The Lancet notes that a pig fell off
Dover Cliff and was picked up alive one hundred and sixty days
after, having been partially imbedded in debris. It was so
surrounded by the chalk of the cliff that little motion was
possible, and warmth was secured by the enclosing material. This
animal had therefore lived on its own fat during the entire
period.
Among the modern exhibitionists may be mentioned Merlatti, the
fasting Italian, and Succi, both of whom fasted in Paris;
Alexander Jacques, who fasted fifty days; and the American, Dr.
Tanner, who achieved great notoriety by a fast of forty days,
during which time he exhibited progressive emaciation. Merlatti,
who fasted in Paris in 1886, lost 22 pounds in a month; during
his fast of fifty days he drank only pure filtered water.
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