The ‘Welsh Fasting Girls’ and Anorexia Nervosa in the Victorian Medical Imagination.

摘要

Introduction On December 17, 1869, twelve-year-old Sarah Jacob starved to death under medical supervision in her family home in the village of Llanfihangel-ar-Arth, Wales, in rural Carmarthenshire. By the time of her death, she supposedly had been fasting for over two years, and was suffering from a variety of physical symptoms, including partial paralysis on her left side, a series of “fits”, and an inability to open her mouth. Ten years later and forty miles away, fourteen-year-old Ann Morgan died on November 9, 1879, in Borth, a seaside village in West Wales. In February 1878, Morgan allegedly had been fasting for over 100 days. Although she was discharged after undergoing treatment in the nearby Aberystwyth Infirmary, doctors speculated that she had been unable to recover fully from the physiological effects of the “fasting mania” and died from exhaustion (“Death of the Borth Fasting Girl” 2). During her fast, Morgan suffered from symptoms of hysteria, including an involuntary movement of her head when anyone was in the room with her (“The Borth Fasting Girl” 5).