ave hoped to see her
cured. I do not see what earthly good a scientific investigation would
do her. On the contrary, it would harm her. Put a relay of physicians to
watch her, and she would undoubtedly do her best to beat them. She would
hold out against them, and likely as not die.'

"Dr. Robert Ormiston said that he thought that the Brooklyn physicians
knew quite as much about the case as their New York brethren, and that
their opinions were of as much weight. 'It has become a most interesting
case from a medical standpoint, because during her long illness, she has
gone through all the different phases of hysteria that have heretofore
been observed in many different cases. I think I am correct in this
statement.'"

From all that can be ascertained therefore, it appears that the young
lady in question received a severe injury to the spinal cord, in
consequence of which she became paralyzed in the lower extremities, in
which members contractions also took place. It is probable also that the
great sympathetic nerve and brain were involved in the injury.

Confined to her bed, her bodily temperature being low, and passing a
good of her time in trances or periods of insensibility, the
requirements of the system as regarded food would necessarily be
limited. But this is the most that can be said. She _did_ breathe, her
heart _did_ beat, she required _some_ bodily heat, and the various other
functions of her organism could not have been maintained without the
expenditure of matter of some kind. During abstinence from food the body
itself is consumed for these purposes, and there being no renovation,
no supplies from without, it loses weight with every instant of time
until death finally ensues. An emaciated person can withstand this drain
less effectually than one who is stout and fat.

Again, it is said that the food taken by Miss Fancher was at once
rejected. That it was _all_ rejected, is in the highest degree
improbable; a portion remained, and this portion, small as it was, did
good service when very little was required.

Another point: that Miss Fancher was hysterical admits of no doubt.
Hysteria is a disease as much in some cases beyond the control of the
patient as inflammation of the brain or any other disease. A proclivity
to simulation and deception is just as much a symptom of hysteria as
pain is of pleurisy. To say, therefore, that she simulated abstinence
and deceived us to the quantity of food she took, is