n
possession. A young girl in the Valley of Calepino had all her limbs
twisted and contracted, and had in the [oe]sophagus a sensation as if a
ball was sometimes rising in her throat, and again falling to her
stomach. Her countenance was of an ashen hue, and she had a constant
sense of weight and pain in the head. All the remedies of physicians had
failed, and as evidences of possession were discovered in her, she was
brought to Brignoli (a priest) who had recourse to supernatural means,
and cured her."

Strange to say, the ability to live on the eucharist, and to resist
starvation by diabolical power, died out with the middle ages, and was
replaced by the "fasting girls," who still continue to amuse us with
their vagaries. To the consideration of some of the more striking
instances of more recent times the attention of the reader is invited,
in the confidence that much of interest in the study of the "History of
Human Folly" will be adduced.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] La Mystique Divine, Naturelle et Diabolique. Paris, 1861. t. I., p.
194, _et seq._

[2] Op. cit. t. IV., p. 446.

II.

ABSTINENCE IN MODERN TIMES.

Among the more striking cases under this head, is that of Margaret
Weiss, a young girl ten years of age, who lived at Rode, a small village
near Spires, and whose history has come down to us through various
channels, but principally from Gerardus Bucoldianus,[3] who had the
medical charge of her, and who wrote a little book describing his
patient. Margaret is said to have abstained from all food and drink for
three years, in the meantime growing, walking about, laughing, and
talking like other children of her age. During the first year, however,
she suffered greatly from pains in her head and abdomen, and, a common
condition in hysteria--all four of her limbs were contracted. She passed
neither urine nor faeces. Margaret, though only ten years old--hysteria
develops the secretive faculties--played her part so well that, after
being watched by the priest of the parish and Dr. Bucoldianus, she was
considered free from all juggling, and was sent home to her friends by
order of the King, "not," the doctor adds, "without great admiration and
princely gifts." Although fully accepting the fact of Margaret's
abstinence, Dr. Bucoldianus appears to have been somewhat staggered, for
he asks very pertinently: "Whence comes the animal heat, since she
neither eats nor drinks, and why does the body grow when nothin