Sarah Jacob - a girl who went to extreme measures to prove she was right (8 photos)

In an effort to prove their case, people often do absurd things. Even those that have already passed the point of no return.





There are many known cases of people who claimed to have lived without food. These people call themselves "breathers" because they supposedly feed only on air and light. Breathing is a hoax. The human body needs food to survive, and many adherents of breathing secretly eat food. Others have died trying to adhere to this lifestyle. One of the most astonishing and tragic cases comes from a time when breathing was not a fad, but a sign of holiness.



Sarah Jacob of Carmarthenshire was known as the "Welsh Fasting Girl"

Sarah Jacob was born on May 12, 1857, to Evan and Hannah Jacob on a farm near the village of Llanfihangel ar Arth in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Her father, Evan Jacobs, was a deacon in the local church. Sarah was known as a healthy, energetic girl with a good intellect, who "spoke English fairly well and could read fairly well."

In February 1867, a few months before her tenth birthday, Sarah became seriously ill and went into a coma. When she came to a month later, she had lost all desire to eat. For the first few weeks, she ate a little rice, oatmeal, or milk. Then she began to feel as if she were surviving on only a few pieces of fruit a day. Finally, she stopped eating altogether. Sarah's parents were upset by her illness, but they did not force the girl to eat.





Sarah's Parents

As the fast wore on, Sarah became something of a local celebrity. Newspapers were filled with wonderful stories about a girl who defied the laws of nature, people came from far away to touch her face and hands as she read verses from the books of Holy Scripture. Her parents dressed up their daughter for the public, adorning her with various trinkets.

People who came to visit the girl really believed they were witnessing a miracle, but Sarah ate secretly when everyone in the house was asleep.

What caused the child to refuse food was never determined. Sarah was fiercely religious, and her actions could have had spiritual overtones, or it could have been a case of anorexia. Whatever the reason, Sarah soon began to understand the value of what she was doing.



The village where this story took place

As Sarah's fame grew, suspicions arose, and the vicar organized a vigil to find out if the family was secretly feeding her. The vigil lasted two weeks, but not all hours, so the results were inconclusive.

In November 1869 - by which time two years had passed since Sarah had supposedly eaten her last supper - the parents proposed and agreed to a more careful observation. Four trained nurses were to sit with Sarah day and night to see if she could really break the laws of nature. The nurses were instructed not to refuse Sarah food if she asked for it, but to see if she was getting any food.



Probable burial site of Sarah Jacob and her parents

Sarah felt trapped, but her pride would not allow her to admit to deception or lying. So she allowed herself to be observed, hoping that somehow she would be able to go without food for the fourteen days that the fatal experiment was designed to last.

As the days passed, Sarah became weaker and weaker, but still did not ask for food. Alarmed that the girl was dying, one of the nurses approached Sarah's parents and told them to give her some food. But this only enraged Evan and Hannah. They asked the nurses to continue their shift, but not to give the girl any food. By the eighth day of their shift, Sarah was delirious. She tossed and turned in bed and fell into a state of unconsciousness from which she never recovered.

An autopsy showed that starvation was the sole cause of death. Sarah's parents were charged with manslaughter. Evan Jacob was sentenced to a year of hard labor, and his wife was sentenced to six months in prison.



Molly Fancher

There are many other examples of extreme fasting among young girls in the Victorian era. Molly Fancher of Brooklyn was 17 years old when she fell off a trolley car and her body was dragged through the streets for an entire block. She broke her spine, lost her sight, and was completely bedridden for over fifty years. During her time in bed, Molly was said to have gone for long periods of time without eating or to have eaten little. Molly's claims of fasting have never been verified.



Anne Moore

Anne Moore of Derbyshire claimed to be able to abstain from food, and attracted a great deal of attention. She insisted that she had not eaten solid food for over five years and had not drunk liquids for four years. Like Sarah Jacob, Anne was subjected to a sixteen-day test to verify her claims. But unlike Sarah, who starved herself to death, Anne secretly fed her daughter while observers were in the room, passing food from mouth to mouth under the guise of kissing her, and soaking towels in milk and broth and squeezing them into her mother's mouth while supposedly wiping her face.



Pranic Food - A Myth and a Dangerous Practice

A case similar to Sarah Jacob's occurred not so long ago, in the 1990s. A well-known breathing advocate, Jasmuheen was put to the test by the Australian TV programme 60 Minutes. After three days, she was so ill that she insisted on being moved from her hotel room to a mountain resort where she said she could better absorb nutrients from the fresh air. But her condition continued to worsen, and on the fourth day the programme stopped the trial, fearing it would be held responsible for her death.