Women and saints have long been praised for maintaining bodily control, even when it reaches extremes. And it doesn’t get much more extreme than starvation. People have claimed to go without food for improbable lengths of time, sometimes with tragic results. From the Middle Ages to the modern era, long-term fasting has carried a dangerous cachet.
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Many religious traditions involve specific limitations on food, from Lent in Christianity to Islamic Ramadan to pre-Christmas veganism in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. This link between fasting and holiness is epitomised by the bearded female saint, Liberata (also known as Wilgefortis), who was venerated in the 14th century. The legend is that Liberata wished to devote herself to God, but her father, the king of Portugal, insisted that she be married. She refused to eat and prayed to be made ugly; her subsequent facial hair was one symptom of her malnutrition. The angry king then had her crucified.
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Like Saint Catherine of Siena and other fasting saints, Liberata exhibited ‘anorexia mirabilis’, or ‘holy anorexia’. One motivation may have been a desire to experience some of the pain of the Crucifixion, or to emulate the 40-day fast during the Temptation of Christ. Another may have been an impulse to avoid bodily changes and sexualised attention from men. This form of suffering also conferred special status on the starving saints. In this etching, fasting is described as one of “three means to gain God’s pity” (the other two being prayer and alms).
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In England, Martha Taylor’s feats of fasting attracted attention on both religious and scientific grounds. Taylor’s health worsened from the age of ten, to the point where she was bedridden and apparently unable to eat or drink, apart from limited fluids. Some people were sceptical of Taylor’s claim to go for years without food. In 1669, John Reynolds submitted an account of her unusual physiology to the Royal Society, titled ‘A discourse upon prodigious abstinence occasioned by the twelve moneths fasting of Martha Taylor, the famed Derbyshire damosell’.
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Such fascination peaked in the 18th century. ‘Fasting women’ tended to be poor, unmarried, religious, and living in rural areas. One example was Mary Thomas, who was believed to have gone without food, apart from a bit of bread and milk, for most of her 90-year life. Travel writer Thomas Pennant documented meeting her on her Welsh farm in 1770. Other male tourists followed, generally describing her emaciated physical appearance and marvelling at her abstinence from food.
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Ann Moore was even more famed. An 1810 pamphlet claimed that she had eaten a few blackcurrants three years prior as her last food, followed by her last bowel movement for two years. Clergy, doctors, tourists and others avidly debated her case. Moore managed this attention by charging admission fees for visiting her in Tutbury. This culminated in an observation period in 1813, with a committee watching her for secret eating or excreting. Without her daughter present to sneak her food and water through kisses, Moore fell extremely ill. In exchange for some milk, Moore signed a confession acknowledging her deceit. The resulting scandal led her to leave town.
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While Moore was discredited as a “fraudulent fasting woman”, Sarah Jacob became known as the Welsh Fasting Girl. She was said to have stopped eating in 1867, at the age of ten. As the crowds continued gathering to gaze upon her, she continued to gain weight. Eventually a 24-hour watch was organised. After eight days she died. Following her death, an autopsy revealed that she had been stealthily eating before the watch. Her parents were jailed for manslaughter, and the medical community was condemned for its role in Jacob’s death.
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It wasn’t only European women who achieved fame and donations for denying themselves food. The Minneapolis doctor Henry S Tanner believed that eating carrots made people nervous, while French beans made them irritable. He also began experimenting with longer and longer fasts, in the belief that “therapeutic fasting” salved his chronic pain. In 1880 he began a 40-day public fast (water allowed) in New York. Visitors streamed in to observe him, offer him gifts, and in one case propose marriage. Tanner made it to the 40th day, received $1,000, and ultimately regained 20 of the 35 pounds he had lost.
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In 2003, magician David Blaine embarked on a 44-day fast in London. He lived in a tiny transparent box, suspended 30 feet above the River Thames, consuming only water. This was a more spectacular version of the 24-hour watches organised in the 19th century. Many viewers were sceptical or hostile, although Blaine lost 60 pounds and exhibited symptoms of starvation. Indeed, belief persists in the health benefits of short-term fasting. For instance, intermittent fasting has become popular in the last decade, although the medical evidence remains inconclusive. More severe are extreme fasting and breatharianism, or the belief that humans can obtain all the nutrients they need from the air. Breatharian communities still exist, even though these practices have resulted in multiple deaths.
About the author
Christine Ro
Christine Ro is a writer and editor whose work is collected at www.christinero.com.