Not very long ago Liedovine de
Schiedam, who had been bedridden for twenty years, affirmed that she
had taken no food for eight of them. It is said that Saint Catharine of
Sienna gradually accustomed herself to do without food, and that she
lived twenty years in total abstinence. We know of several examples of
prolonged sleep during which the sleeper naturally took no nourishment.
In his Magic Disquisitions, Delvis cites the case of a countryman who
slept for an entire autumn and winter. Pfendler relates that a certain
young and hysterical woman fell twice into a deep slumber which each
time lasted six months. In 1883 an _enceinte_ woman was found asleep
on a bench in the Grand Armee Avenue. She was taken to the Beaujon
Hospital, where she was delivered a few days after while still asleep,
and it was not till the end of three months that she could be awakened
from her lethargy. At this very moment, at Tremeille, a woman named
Marguerite Bouyenvalle is sleeping a sleep that has lasted nearly a
year, during which the only food that she has had is a few drops of soup
daily.
What is more remarkable, Dr. Fournier says in his Dictionary of Medical
Sciences that he knew of a distinguished writer at Paris, who sometimes
went for months at a time without taking anything but emollient drinks,
while at the same time living along like other people.
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