A complete history of the case of the Welsh fasting-girl (Sarah Jacob) with comments thereon; and observations on death from starvation.

  • Fowler, Robert.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A complete history of the case of the Welsh fasting-girl (Sarah Jacob) with comments thereon; and observations on death from starvation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    Her Parentage, gation into, tlie consequences and results of a more or less complete abstinence from solid and liquid food. Nevertheless, as members of a common humanity, we cannot but deplore that such addition to the medical history of Starvation should have been gained by the sacrifice of a human life ! Such a case—such a termination—is, however, httle likely to occur again. Let this sad event but be taken well to heart by all miracle-mongers whomsoever, and we shall not hear more of such or similar wondertul abnormities. Nature will at all times, and with equa severity, demonstrate her dominion over such asserted outrao^es on all her known laws and operations. There must be something unnatural m the mental training of those individuals who, in this nineteenth century, announce themselves as patrons of the miracu- lous and abnormal! Who are they ? They certainly are not our o-reat students of Nature—the devotees oijacts! We would rather aver that their very credulousness shows a want of healthy contact with the daily doings oi our active life. The retirement of the closet must oi necessity conduce to the more or less complete abne- c^ation of one of the essentials for the formation of Science. Certain it is, that in the study of vital pheno- mena, the mind of the recluse, as also of him who mixes but mie in the daily bustle and stir of this busy world, is more apt to follow the process of deduction,-^n A to move him to eiclaim upon failure-^ So much the worse for the facts It is in these days rare to find medical men amongst'the votaries of marvels. Modern Medicine, guardWbythe simplicity of the dissecting-room and the exactitude of the Laboratory, is, from the observation of thino-s wiM, led up by the laborious process oi induotwn to a more correct appreciation of Nature's unerrmglaws EvTjacob, the father of the Welsh Fastmg-Girl,' i^ or rather was, a small tenant-farmer occupying a farm called Llethernoyadd-ucha,* in t^ie parish of T In^fihanoel-ar-Arth, Carmarthenshire, about one mile and a Wf^from the P'encader Station on the Carmarthen andCardio^an Railway. The farm contams about 124 acres of and, and was rented from the owners, Messrs. Sgcfof^^and Lloyd, at 61^. a year. The farm-house is