Tanner or the Fasting Doctor

The Fasting Doctor. – The interest aroused by him – A martyr to fame. – The end of the fast and a ceremonial feast. – Watermelon instead of pharmacy doses. – Alarm and perplexity. – History of the fast. – From his past life. – Prospects for the future.

At the very moment when our trans-Atlantic friends were drowning in grain wealth, among them there appeared a man who decided to astonish the world with an extraordinary feat of a forty-day fast. This was the famous Dr. Tanner. Being a specialist in animal chemistry, Dr. Tanner worked out a theory according to which man can live without food and water much longer than the limits ordinarily set by medicine and physiology. As a true American, he did not limit himself to words, but openly came forth with his theory and offered some learned society his person for the experiment of a forty-day fast, asking in return for only one thousand dollars. His theory, and especially this thousand dollars, raised a storm in the medical world, and from among his brothers in arms were found those who did not hesitate before anything just to undermine confidence in the fasting doctor and proclaimed his theory a great humbug, as Americans ordinarily call deception under a plausible pretext. The fasting doctor, of course, was offended and decided to confound his opponents—by submitting himself to a forty-day fast without any compensation whatsoever.

As the place for this unprecedented experiment, he chose a public hall and invited all physicians interested in the experiment to be present during his fasting and observe all the phases of his hunger strike. Most physicians even now treated the doctor with irony and called him almost mad; but others expressed their agreement to observe the fasting doctor and formed a circle which was to take turns watching the doctor’s fast. And so indeed on June 28, Tanner for the last time ate a beefsteak and began his fast. The physicians took all precautions possible to observe the actuality of the fasting. They searched all his clothing, shook out his bed, examined his room, so as not to give him the possibility of hiding any nourishing substance, and separated him from all the surrounding world. Newspapers and letters were handed to the doctor only after the most careful examination. A detailed account was kept in a book of all his movements and conditions. The doctor was already an elderly man, with considerable humor, and with a cheerful disposition devoted himself to the difficult undertaking. He was in good health, with a ruddy face, though already with gray hair. The first four days the doctor was cheerful and fresh, as if nothing had happened, and spoke lively and joked with his learned observers and visitors. But on the fifth and sixth day, hunger noticeably began to assert itself, and his bright eyes grew noticeably dimmed. The physicians who had sneered at him immediately proclaimed the experiment a failure and predicted that the fasting doctor would not live another two days if he did not abandon his “mad” experiment. A few days later, however, they were obliged to push back the day of the doctor’s death considerably. The fifth and sixth days were, according to the faster himself, a difficult crisis for him, after which light days should come again. And indeed, on the following days cheerfulness again returned to the doctor, fire lit up in his eyes, and even a ruddy color played on his cheeks, as though the faster had eaten an excellent beefsteak from Kentucky meat and washed it down with good port. And yet he had taken absolutely nothing into his mouth—not a crumb of bread and not a drop of water. This so astonished those who predicted his death that they positively did not know what to do. They even began to suspect the watching physicians themselves of conspiracy with the doctor and were not averse to accusing all of deception. One of the skeptical physicians, who had especially insisted on the inevitability of the doctor’s death on the 7th or 8th day, appearing in person in the hall of the hunger experiment, raised an actual storm, accusing all of deception. This so affected the nerves of the fasting doctor that afterward he wept like a child and declared that this shock had cost him a good ten days of fasting. Then the physicians insisted that he take some water, and he indeed took three ounces. This miraculously revived him, and he grew fresh and cheered again. Finally, when the 10th, 12th, 14th, and 15th days of the fast had passed, and Dr. Tanner still did not die, as the physicians had predicted, attention to him began to increase rapidly.

Especially remarkable in this fast was that the doctor had absolutely no rest, which is the chief condition for the success of such an experiment. He constantly received numerous visitors, conversed with them and the doctors, walked about, and already on the 14th day of the fast was running up the stairs to the upper gallery for a walk with such speed as only democratic politicians, by the remark of one reporter (the hall in which the doctor fasted belonged to the Democrats), run after rallies for whiskey.

Little by little, news of Dr. Tanner spread not only throughout all America but throughout Europe, exciting everywhere interest, disputes, and perplexity. Day after day, the newspapers printed the most detailed reports of all the movements and conditions of the faster, and the public read them eagerly, as in times of the most important political events. The interest naturally grew as the fast drew to a close, and his last days were days of a sort of feverish agony. The hall was simply besieged by visitors, and the entrance fee in the last days brought daily collections of about a thousand dollars. Surely the most brilliant medical practice would not have brought the doctor such a desirable income! And popularity, which the Americans so cherish, increased to such a degree that undoubtedly it became a matter of envy for the most prominent politicians. Daily, ladies from the highest circles showered the faster with bouquets, and in the streets during his usual walks the people greeted him with enthusiastic “hurrahs,” and blue-eyed ladies adorned his carriage with “roses and lilies” of their encouraging sympathy. Letters to him daily increased in number, so that the faster finally was unable to cope with them himself and in reading them made use of the services of the legion of physicians and reporters that surrounded him. Bets on the success of his undertaking were announced in multitude and for tens of thousands of dollars. Those interested in the bets constantly encouraged him with words of approval, promising to share the winnings in case of success. Speculators rushed upon the faster with their services, trying to profit from his popularity for their own purposes, and surrounded him with unprecedented comfort. The walls of the hall grew decorated with signs that read: “The magnificent piano, delighting the ears of the fasting doctor, was provided by the firm of Brook,” located there; “The best spring mattress in the world, on which the fasting doctor finds sweet repose, has been prepared” there; “The favorite wonderful rocking chair of the fasting doctor was provided” by such-and-such a firm, etc. Boys on the streets distributed whole piles of photographic cards showing the doctor in the different phases of his fast, and publishing firms announced in advance the “histories” of the fast they were preparing. In a word, the famous faster became the center around which feverishly moved a chaos of diverse interests—scientific, curious, monetary, and even sentimental. One lady sent him a tender love letter in which with charming words of a loving woman she encouraged him in the difficult undertaking and offered in return for success her hand and heart. Various societies deluged him with invitations to give lectures for hundreds of dollars an evening, etc., and so on.

Amid this dizzying whirlwind of different interests, the unfortunate fasting doctor himself languished like a mortal shadow, measuring the awful ordeal with a beclouded gaze in terms of days and hours. This experiment appeared physiological in its outward form, but the psychological element was scarcely less fascinating. In fact, to condemn oneself to a full forty days of the most monotonous and empty life possible, with constantly intensifying physical suffering hour after hour, with the alternative of death or universal humiliation and ridicule that would inevitably await him if the experiment failed—this certainly meant to accomplish a tremendous feat of will. Only a man of extraordinary strength of will could have resolved to attempt such a thing, and still more to carry it through to completion. The Americans value any kind of strength exceedingly highly, whether physical or psychological, and now they practically revered the will-power demonstrated by the doctor, and the numerous ovations given to him stemmed chiefly from this aspect of the experiment. Both the ovations and the doctor’s sufferings increased as the fast approached its end. The last three days were almost fatal for the doctor, and the physicians urgently demanded that he break his fast, but the fasting doctor insisted on his resolve—and he completed it triumphantly at twelve o’clock on Saturday, August 7th.

On the fortieth day of his fast, Doctor Tanner was positively the hero of the day. If the fast itself had been an interesting phenomenon, the moment of its termination became an even more interesting event. Everyone was interested in the question of how the doctor would begin eating after such a prolonged abstinence. Many looked upon this moment with dread as the most dangerous and critical one. Indeed, his stomach had become so exhausted that it would reject even water, which the doctor took in apothecary’s doses. Consultations among physicians regarding the preparation of appropriate food for their fasting patient had begun a week before the fast ended. Every precaution that medical wisdom could suggest was taken. Several recipes were prepared according to which the fasting doctor’s eating should begin. Meanwhile, from all sides, private offerings of various dishes poured in for the doctor, and on Saturday the enormous table in his hall was positively laden with all manner of delicacies. Juicy beefsteaks, magnificent fruits, whole dozens of different wines and among them a dozen bottles of the so-called Russian milk wine—were arranged in neat rows with floral decorations. The admission fee on the final day was set at one dollar, and despite this the hall was crowded with people, and masses from outside still pressed about, waiting for the fateful moment when the doctor would begin to eat. The doctor himself spent the last hours in an extremely excited and impatient state. He constantly took out and looked at his watch, as though counting even the seconds. At last, the fateful and long-desired moment arrived. At a factory in the opposite house, a machine announced with a whistle that twelve o’clock had come; workers came out on the roof and shouted: “Long live Doctor Tanner!”—and all the masses in the street took up the greeting. The hall resounded with enthusiastic shouts, and a pianist began playing a dining march: “Quickly, quickly to the table of grace!” The doctor, his face lighting up, descended from the upper gallery and sat down at the luxuriously appointed table. There were so many dishes on the table that one’s eyes would have reeled even for someone who had not fasted beforehand. Therefore the doctor, paying no attention to the table, took out his penknife and calmly began cutting a peach, which he had been holding in his hand for half an hour before the fast ended, constantly reciting—as he later stated—the prayer: “And lead us not into temptation.” The peach quickly vanished into the doctor’s empty stomach, and the hall resounded with furious cries of approval, which instantly spread through the street as well. The doctor cheerfully waved his handkerchief to the public and even more cheerfully said: “Well, come on, give me that Georgia watermelon over there!” Enthusiastic laughter and applause thundered through the hall. The physicians voiced their protest and offered the doctor their apothecary’s doses. “No, gentlemen, I have been under your despotic rule for forty days; now I wish to be free; give me the watermelon!” The hall once more trembled with delight, and the magnificent watermelon from the state of Georgia split under the knife of the faster. Then the doctor drank milk. The next day he ate beefsteak. The physicians were horrified and bewildered, while the faster simply listened and ate. “You’ve even swallowed a beefsteak!”—remarked one medical student in reverent horror. “Yes, sir! Look here, and you stay far away from me, or I’ll swallow you too!”—joked the fasting doctor. So the faster successfully crossed this dreadful Rubicon dividing the fast from eating. In the following days the faster continued eating until his jaws were exhausted, and he noticed only that every muscle worked in him during this process. “Eating is now my main occupation!”—he said cheerfully, consuming one beefsteak after another.

Never before has medical science encountered such a mysterious phenomenon as this fast of Doctor Tanner. All its vicissitudes, with such incredible force, destroyed all the predictions and theories of the physicians, that among them there was genuine upheaval, and the question arose in society regarding the scientific validity of modern medicine. Hitherto, medicine had commonly asserted that a man without food could live no longer than ten to twelve days. Stories are told of longer periods of life without food, but all these cases were doubted, as they occurred without any regular observation. From experiments by various scientists on animals, it was evident that those animals live longer without food that have greater reserves in their fatty tissues. The first signs of dying from hunger consist of a lowering of temperature. Doctor Tanner proved completely unsuited to this observation. His temperature during all forty days of the fast underwent only the most insignificant fluctuations, and his fatty reserves were not large. The doctor’s ordinary weight was 184 pounds, but when he began his fast, his weight was only 157 [1] pounds. Clearly, he began his experiment at one of the most unfavorable moments. In animals subjected to experiments of starvation, prolonged fasting produced mental stupefaction. The physicians predicted such an unpleasant prospect for the fasting doctor as well, but their predictions were completely belied. The doctor remained clear-headed throughout, and even in the last days of his fast his cheerful humor constantly amused his numerous visitors. On the twenty-seventh day of the fast there began to be noticed a weakening of memory, but this stemmed more from external irritability and weakness than from exhaustion of the brain. A well-known materialist here said on this matter: “This fast has done more to shake my faith in materialism than all I have known hitherto. We materialists think that the soul is simply a function of the brain, and that with every thought a certain brain cell is destroyed. If the brain becomes exhausted, then its function—thought—becomes exhausted and weakened. Now, however, I see that Doctor Tanner has exhausted his brain almost impossibly through the terrible depletion of phosphorus in it, and yet his thought remains constantly clear and active. I cannot reconcile this with my conviction.” Another remarkable feature of the fast was the effect of water on the doctor. When he took water, his pulse would strengthen, color would begin to play in his face, and he would feel a general invigoration and strengthening. His tissues absorbed water like a sponge.