{"id":23180,"date":"2015-11-13T10:01:07","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T15:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=23180"},"modified":"2015-11-14T18:25:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-14T23:25:34","slug":"anorexia-mirabilis-fasting-girls-in-victorian-england-and-fasting-men-in-modern-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2015\/11\/13\/anorexia-mirabilis-fasting-girls-in-victorian-england-and-fasting-men-in-modern-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Anorexia Mirabilis: Fasting in Victorian England and modern India"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flashback Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n

Joan Jacob Brumberg’s fantastic book, Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa<\/a><\/em>, is an excellent example of the benefits of sociologically-inspired history.\u00a0 Brumberg begins by explaining that girls who starved themselves have been recorded in many historical epochs, but the way in which societies have made sense of that starvation has varied.<\/p>\n

Today we medicalize self-starvation; we call it a mental illness and we name it “anorexia nervosa.”<\/p>\n

In Medieval Europe, fasting girls were labeled with the term “anorexia mirabilis”; these girls were seen as miracles, able to survive on spiritual devotion alone. During the Victorian Era, people would pilgrimage to these fasting girls and leave offerings.\u00a0 A famous fasting girl could be a financial boon to a struggling family.<\/p>\n

Fasting Girl Mollie Fancher<\/a> in 1887:<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

During the nineteenth century, medical doctors and psychiatrists (who generally saw religion as a threat to their nascent authority) argued that the fasting girls were impossibilities, that no one could survive without food. The competition between medicine and religion became so intense that doctors became intent on proving that these fasting girls were not surviving on holiness, but were sneaking food. In several cases, doctors staked out fasting girls, watching her to make sure that she did not eat, and these girls, relentless in the illusion, sometimes died.<\/p>\n

In any case, I thought of Brumberg’s book when I came across a story about Prahlad Jani<\/a>, an Indian man who claims that he has not had any food or drink for 70 years, surviving on “spiritual life force” instead.<\/p>\n

In 2003 and 2010, Jani’s claims were tested by physicians. In the latest round, Indian military scientists held\u00a0him in a hospital, watching him to ensure he did not eat or\u00a0drink.\u00a0 Unlike the doctors in the Victorian era, however, who wanted the girls to fail, these doctors think Jani might hold a secret that will be useful for the military and they’re hoping that, by watching, they will be able to discover it.<\/p>\n

They released him after 15 days. As they did in 2003, they said\u00a0that his tests came back normal despite complete abstinence from food and water.<\/p>\n

Originally posted in 2010.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flashback Friday. Joan Jacob Brumberg’s fantastic book, Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa, is an excellent example of the benefits of sociologically-inspired history.\u00a0 Brumberg begins by explaining that girls who starved themselves have been recorded in many historical epochs, but the way in which societies have made sense of that starvation has varied. Today […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":68299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2124,252,253,1784,42,309],"class_list":["post-23180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-foodagriculture","tag-healthmedicine","tag-history","tag-nation-india","tag-religion","tag-warmilitary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2010\/05\/2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23180"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68333,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23180\/revisions\/68333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}