A fasting girl was one of a number of young

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edward ...

girls, usually pre-adolescent, who claimed to be able to survive over indefinitely long periods of time without consuming any food or other nourishment. In addition to refusing food, fasting girls claimed to have special religious or magical powers. The ability to survive without nourishment was attributed to some saints during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, including

Catherine of Siena Catherine of Siena ( Italian: ''Caterina da Siena''; 25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, was a mystic, activist, and author who had a great influence on Italian literature and on the Catholic Church ...

and Lidwina of Schiedam, and regarded as a miracle and a sign of sanctity. Numerous cases of fasting girls were reported in the late 19th century. Believers regarded such cases as miraculous. In some cases, the fasting girls also exhibited the appearance of

stigmata Stigmata ( grc, στίγματα, plural of , 'mark, spot, brand'), in Roman Catholicism, are bodily wounds, scars and pain which appear in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ: the hands, wrists, and feet. Sti ...

. Doctors, however, such as William A. Hammond ascribed the phenomenon to fraud and

hysteria Hysteria is a term used colloquially to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that ...

on the part of the girl. Historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg believes the phenomenon to be an early example of

anorexia nervosa Anorexia nervosa, often referred to simply as anorexia, is an eating disorder characterized by underweight, low weight, Calorie restriction, food restriction, body image disturbance, fear of gaining weight, and an overpowering desire to be thi ...

Mollie Fancher

Mary J. "Mollie" Fancher (1848–1916), otherwise known as the "Brooklyn Enigma", was well known for her claim of not eating or eating very little for extended periods of time. She attended a reputable school and, by all reports, was an excellent student. At age 16, she was diagnosed with

dyspepsia Indigestion, also known as dyspepsia or upset stomach, is a condition of impaired digestion. Symptoms may include upper abdominal fullness, heartburn, nausea, belching, or upper abdominal pain. People may also experience feeling full earlier ...

. At around the age of 19, reports came out that she had abstained from eating for seven weeks. It was after two accidents, in 1864 and 1865, that she became famous for her ability to abstain from food. As a result of the accidents, Mollie Fancher lost her ability to see, touch, taste, and smell. She claimed to have powers that involved her being able to predict events as well as to read without the ability of sight. By the late 1870s, she was claiming to eat little or nothing at all for many months. Her claim to abstinence from food lasted for 14 years. Doctors and people in the public began to question her abilities and wished to perform tests to determine the truthfulness of her claims. The claims to abstinence were never verified and she died in February 1916.

Sarah Jacob

A case that led to a death and arrests was that of Sarah Jacob (May 12, 1857 – December 17, 1869), the "Welsh fasting girl", who claimed not to have eaten any food at all after the age of ten. A local vicar, initially skeptical, became convinced that the case was authentic and Jacob enjoyed a long period of publicity, during which she received numerous gifts and donations from people who believed she was miraculous. Doctors were becoming increasingly skeptical about her claims and eventually proposed that she be monitored in a hospital environment to see whether her claims about fasting were true. In 1869, her parents agreed for a test to be conducted under strict supervision by nurses from

Guy's Hospital Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science cent ...

. The nurses were instructed not to deny Jacob food if she asked for it, but to see that any she received was observed and recorded. After two weeks, she was showing clear signs of

starvation Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, dea ...

. The

vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pr ...

told the parents that she was failing and that the nurses ought to be sent away so that she could get food. The parents refused and continued to refuse even when informed that their daughter was dying, insisting that they had frequently seen her like this before and that lack of food had nothing to do with her symptoms. Jacob died of starvation a few days later and it was found that she had actually been consuming very little amounts of food secretly, which she could no longer do under medical supervision. Her parents were convicted of

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ...

and sentenced to hard labour.Staff (May 26, 1873). "The Case of Trance at Turville". ''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'': p. 3. (Reprinted from ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...

'').

Other fasting girls

Another case was that of New Jersey's Lenora Eaton in 1881. Reputable citizens in Eaton's town promoted her as someone who had "lived without eating". During these times, Eaton was marked as a "special person and symbol of faith in the miraculous". When these claims were investigated and doctors were sent to help her, Eaton continued to refuse to eat and died after forty-five days. In 1889, the ''Boston Globe'' ran a story, "Who Took the Cold Potato? Dr. Mary Walker Says the Fasting Girl Bit a Doughnut.""Who Took the Cold Potato? Dr. Mary Walker Says the Fasting Girl Bit a Doughnut." The Boston Daily Globe, April 9, 1889, p. 8 Dr. Mary Edwards Walker reported that Josephine Marie Bedard, known as the Tingwick girl, was a fraud. The evidence was circumstantial: "At the hotel I searched her clothing and found in one of her pockets a doughnut with a bite taken out of it.... On Fast day I had a lunch served to me... I left a platter with three pieces of fried potato on it. I went there and one of the pieces was gone... when I returned, Josephine had her handkerchief to her mouth." Asked whether that was all the evidence, she said, "after I accused her of it she broke down and cried." Because fasting girls were such a curiosity in the Victorian era, many companies and individuals rushed to put them on display, as in a then-popular

freak show A freak show, also known as a creep show, is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with ...

human zoo Human zoos, also known as ethnological expositions, were public displays of people, usually in a so-called "natural" or "primitive" state. They were most prominent during the 19th and 20th centuries. These displays sometimes emphasized the sup ...

. In the case of Josephine Marie Bedard, two different Boston-based enterprises, the Nickelodeon and Stone and Shaw's museum, competed in court for the right to "exhibit the girl" publicly. Still, even as she was used for blatant commercial gain, there was also an element of scientific inquiry in regarding Bedard as a medical phenomenon.

References

{{reflist, 33em

Mollie Fancher

Sarah Jacob

Other fasting girls

See also

References

Further reading