SINGULAR DELUSION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3605, 31 January 1883, Page 4

SINGULAR DELUSION.

A''singular delusion " is thus described by the Xew York Herald in a letter from its Montreal correspondent:—"A remarkable case of prolonged voluntary fasting has occurred here. A young man named Charles Fallon, a book-keeper in a large produce house here, took it into his head more than it month ago that lie was commanded by by CJod to abstain, from taking food. The appeals of his mother and sister were unavailing, and he would listen to no remonstrance"cither of the family physician or the pastor of the church. He was moral in character and exemplary in conduct. His family are in comfortable circumstances. Dr. AY. 11. Hingston attended him and watched the case. A week passed and beyond an occasional sip of water young Fallon would take no nourishment. There was no insanity about him, neither did he meditate suicide. In answer to all entreaties he said that God would tell him when to eat again. Three weeks passed and still Fallon lingered. Then Dr. Howard, an expert in insanity, was called in and he said the man was sane, and that force should be used. Dr. Hingston would not sanction this course. The patient was so emaciated that ho (the doctor) doubted whether his stomach ever could retain food enough to nourish his body again and force might kill him instead of doing him any n-ood. Meanwhile the Rev. Canon Baldwin, whose Bible class Fallon had attended, was doing all in his power to induce the yoiiii"- man to eat. 'Have you a revelation from God that I am to eat:-' was the iinswcr of Fallon. This nonplussed the reverend gentleman, who, however, enlisted the prayers of Christians for him. Finally, on the 33rd day of the fast, Fallon remarked to his mother that ho thought he would eat .something. Dr. Hingston then provided such food as he believed the emaciated body could stand, and Fallon is now on a fair way to recovery. The case is one that creates much interest in the medical profes-

sion here."'