WEBVTT - Bedside Manners 6: Hungry for a Cure 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:08.640 Alexander Henderson had heard some strange things in his day 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.400 as a doctor. He liked solving the body's mysteries. But 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.640 what or who waited for him in Tutbury, a small 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.680 village in Staffordshire, was something or someone that even he 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.240 couldn't quite understand. His patient that day was a local 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.880 resident by the name of Anne Moore, who claimed to 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.840 have not eaten since eighteen oh seven, the year, by 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.680 the way, was now eighteen twelve. Anne had long ago 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.519 ceased to just be a local oddity. Now she was 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.320 a global superstar. She had become famous for claiming to 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:43.040 survive without food. There was now even a wax replica 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.600 of her across the ocean in a Boston museum. But 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.760 it wasn't Anne that called for Alexander's counsel that day. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.760 She actually didn't need a thing. Rather, he was going 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:56.880 to surprise her. This was an ambush, and Alexander wanted 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.240 to prove her grift once and for all. When he 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.240 and his traveling companion arrived at her home, they found 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.200 her in bed. She was seemingly unperturbed by their sudden appearance, 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.479 and for someone who supposedly hadn't eaten in years, her 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.200 body told an interesting story. Her lower half did indeed 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.920 look a bit withered, but she overall looked healthy. But 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.160 she was fifty years old and claimed to have had 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.800 no food for five years and no drink for four 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.720 of those. And she told them that she hadn't defecated 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:30.280 in five years nor urinated in three. However, Alexander's own 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:33.520 sense told him otherwise, with the odor of soiled bedclothes 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.040 hanging heavy in the room. Even though Alexander didn't believe 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:41.800 Anne's claims, her community certainly did. They wanted to. You see, 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.920 she stood for something much larger than herself, and she 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.520 wasn't the only girl or woman to take up this 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:52.360 starvation path. For centuries, the ability to survive without nourishment 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.000 had been tied to morality and divinity, and now Anne 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.400 Moore would become part of a long line of girls 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.559 and women who would use as a public spectacle. Often, 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.960 these women, who had later become known as the Fasting Girls, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.000 came from rural backgrounds or from poor and working class families. 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.080 From humble beginnings, they found ways to usurp their social order. 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.520 Suddenly people wanted to pay attention to them, and when 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.760 word of their strange feats spread, People would come to 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.800 see them, and often for a price. Molly Franchier, a 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.079 woman from Brooklyn, New York, spoke in prophecies and accepted donations. 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.280 Others such as Sarah Jacob, the Welsh fasting Girl, Leonora 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.040 Eaton of New Jersey, and Josephine Marie Bedard, claimed to 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.440 have been granted a variety of abilities and powers because 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:44.240 of their abstinence from food. The cultural fascination with them 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.720 inspired their courting by P. T. Barnum and his contemporaries 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.040 for dime museums and sideshows. They were a hot commodity. 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.320 Those fasting girls and Alexander saw them as nothing more 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.560 than a hoax. After examining Anne, Alexander deduced that it 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.160 was likely that she had fasted just over two weeks. 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:03.919 He deemed that her five year fast that she claimed 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.000 to have undertaken would have actually killed her, and for 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.960 her parts, did all that she could to avoid close 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.959 and protracted scrutiny of any kind, and, according to Alexander's 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.560 published account, those who supported her had a vested interest 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.519 in maintaining her ruse. Her station in life had certainly improved. 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.560 She had gone from impoverished to comfortable, affording an existence 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.160 funded by her own exhibition. But this wasn't to last. 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:33.280 For curious outsiders, the desire to prove or disprove her 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:37.200 claims became insatiable. In the spring of eighteen thirteen, it 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.560 was decided that a local clergyman would supervise her around 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.920 the clock. He would sit at her bedside, maintaining vigil 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.920 She was reluctant to be a part of any such watch, 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.600 but did against her better judgment. The study began on 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.960 April twenty first. By the thirtieth Anne was emaciated and feverish, 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.880 causing her daughter to call it off, and died a 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:01.240 few months later at the age of fifty three. There 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:03.880 is much to be said about the fasting girls and 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.720 why they did what they did. In fact, although the 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:10.680 history of fasting is inextricably linked to morality and piety, 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.280 there's a shadowy side there as well, and Moore was 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.520 nowhere near the first to take a crack at a 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.240 career in fasting for personal gain, and as usual, she 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:25.600 wouldn't be the last. I'm Aaron Manky and welcome to 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:39.479 bedside Manners. Before Primetime TV gave us the WWE and WWF. 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.320 We had the Gladiators. They were a curious class in 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:48.360 Roman society, admired, revered, and somewhat's on the fringe, bound 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.240 by an oath to submit to death, who just happened 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:55.120 to also provide top notch entertainment. They were a spectacle 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.640 unto themselves, selling tickets to shows that helped the masses 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:02.279 pass the sweltering ro afternoons. It's here that we once 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.240 again find the physician Galen, who by now you've already 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.840 heard a lot about in this season. By around one 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.960 sixty a d. Galen had become the resident physician to 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:13.839 the Gladiators at the Temple of Peragammon. He was the 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.200 guy behind the scenes, rubbing their shoulders, stitching their skin, 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.479 and cleaning up their spilled blood. Galen would tend to 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.719 his gladiators between shows, prepping them to get back out 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.240 in the ring, so to speak, for the cheering crowds. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.640 The scope of his actual work was pretty broad. He 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.520 was a doctor, an athletic trainer, a physical therapist, and 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.600 a dietician all rolled into one. He was particularly interested 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.320 in experimenting with diet for strength building and healing, which 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.000 he spoke at length about these ideas in his writing. 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:48.160 He saw food as a tool, pretty straightforward healing modality 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.400 for the body and the spirit. These ideas, though, were 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:54.359 inherited from another mind that we've heard about in this series, 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.080 the mind of Hippocrates. Years before, he had written that 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.479 everyone has a physician side of him or her. We 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.359 just have to help it in its work. Our food 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.880 should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.360 Leaning on his idea of the four humors the balance 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.480 of four bodily fluids that controlled the health of our systems, 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.640 Galen sought balance through combining and eating what he thought 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.640 to be opposites. Take his treatment for indigestion, for example, 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:25.160 it was believed that this was a symptom of too 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.719 much cold, wet flegm, so a hot, dry treatment should 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.839 be taken. A common prescription might be wine to dry 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.200 you out, and black pepper to bring the heat. He 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.239 wrote three books on the idea, all divided into themes. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.320 The first volume spoke largely of grains, the second to 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.839 fruits and vegetables, and the third of animal products. Think 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.600 of these as therapeutic texts, attempting to outline the utility 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.159 of each food and devising ways to use them to 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.320 heal people. He didn't believe in a one size fits 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.240 all diet and believe that every individual should take into 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.000 consideration what fits them best. Later writers picked up where 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.520 Galen left off. Scrimonious Largess, who was writing in the 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.120 first century a d thought that diet should be the 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.840 first line of defense in medical care. Plutarch also believed 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.880 that doctors did their best work when prescribing diets and 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.800 sleep as opposed to taking more drastic measures. Prevention through 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.720 a good diet was more ideal than needing to seek 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.600 a cure once you got sick, especially when cures those 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.240 days looked a lot like cutting, bleeding and burning the body. 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.360 And alongside thoughts on how we should be eating, there 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:39.120 were many coexisting belief systems that spoke of how we shouldn't. Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:43.960 and Taoism ancient religions, all of them elevate fasting, even 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.640 if for different reasons. Fasting is often understood to be 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.480 a means of humility and sacrifice, or of clarity and awareness, 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.600 a physical self denial for the purpose of spiritual satisfaction. 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.840 The Greeks, for example, believe that demons had the ability 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.600 to enter into the mouth while we ate, and later 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.440 on Puritan Cotton Mather recommended fasting to all of those 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:10.600 who wanted to stop the witchcraft hysteria that had besieged Salem, Massachusetts. Together, 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.880 all of these ideas around eating and not eating have 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.760 created something of a monstrous tangled web in our collective 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.240 belief systems of what eating even means. There are entire 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.480 fields of study dedicated to understanding such things. For us today, though, 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:27.720 we're going to begin by just pulling at some of 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.559 these freight ends of fasting this ancient and complicated tool. 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.760 Around the turn of the twentieth century, a perfect storm 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.600 of eating had landed on the shores of the United States. 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.640 Mass immigration had arrived and with it a slew of 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:45.079 new cultures and their food ways. Industrialization too, was taking hold. 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.120 To feed all of these mouths, mass produced food was 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.920 often cut with toxic additives to make it go further, 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.520 to last longer, and to be more profitable. The edible 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.920 landscape of America was changing and quickly. At that far 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:03.360 from healing, was actively making people physically sick. And it 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.840 makes sense then that for folks of a certain elevated class, 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.280 ideas around self control and food would begin to blur. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.960 Starvation due to poverty was deadly, but exercising fasting with 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.080 the safety net of abundance, even among the secular folks, 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.560 began to take on a righteous air. Time was ripe 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.160 to look once again towards the past for answers to 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.840 current woes. The marketing of dietary cures began in earnest, 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:30.960 some in good faith and with advice that we still 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:35.920 abide by today. Others, though, had no intent to cure. Instead, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:46.760 they aimed to kill. Linda had no medical degree, but 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.040 she had a can opener, and she had a vision. 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:51.679 You could say that her life was set on this course. 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.440 When she was a young child in Minnesota. Each year, 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.480 a traveling doctor would visit her family's home, Her father 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.000 hopeful that the man had the tools to ward off 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.520 any potential illnesses. That one fateful visit, though she and 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.360 her seven siblings were given mercury pills, tiny and blue 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:11.560 and undeniably potent, she was effectively poisoned by the very 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.920 person who said that he would keep her healthy, and 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.400 it shouldn't surprise you to hear that this treatment made 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:21.000 Linda very, very sick, with frequent bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.040 Unable to take the hint, the doctor prescribed more of 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.280 the same pills for Linda's advancing illness, and she would 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.480 stay sick for years as a result. This set her 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.920 off on a quest for her own healing. As a 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.200 young woman, she decided to study osteopathy, thinking that she 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.320 would become a nurse, and soon became a disciple of 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.880 doctor Edward Hooker Dewey, an ardent practitioner and promoter of fasting. 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.439 Linda decided that this would be her purpose and her mission. 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.920 She was going to become the world's leaving authority on fasting, 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:53.840 the likes of which no one had ever seen before. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.800 She moved to Minneapolis in nineteen oh three and set 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.600 up shop, leaving behind a husband and children to fend 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.520 for them. She was of a single mind now and 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.600 couldn't let anyone stand in her way. She figured that 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.440 men were allowed to trailblaze, so why shouldn't she be 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.319 allowed to do the same. Linda believed that system in 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.599 purification was the root of all sickness, caused by overeating. 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.640 Her approach was a pragmatic and brutal one, relying on 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.720 patients only consuming thin broths made of strained canned tomatoes 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.560 and asparagus. Installing patients under her watchful eye, she would 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:31.640 administer daily enemas that sometimes lasted for hours. She also 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.920 prescribed daily therapeutic massages, in which patients would be pummeled 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.960 in the stomach and forehead as Linda commanded them to eliminate. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.480 Her gumption proved to be a selling point, and curious 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.480 seekers found their way to her doorstep. But it didn't 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.959 take long for her practice to take on something that 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:51.360 fell short of a shine. In fact, she began to 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:56.040 gain a deadly reputation. Clients associated with her began to wither, 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:58.960 and some began to die. But of course she couldn't 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.200 be blamed for this. They were free agents, after all, 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.160 bound by nothing more than a shared interest in holistic 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.839 healing and health. The most human thing, after all, is 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:12.600 to die, and sometimes that's just what the sick did right. This, 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:15.520 of course, wasn't a great look for Linda. She had 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.920 taken a lover named Sam, and upon his release from 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.720 prison in nineteen oh seven, they both skipped down and 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.920 settled in Seattle. Even still, her reputation preceded her. The 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.400 papers wrote about this mysterious fasting doctor who had come 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.520 to town her wild and boisterous claims, and speculated about 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.520 her checkered past. But in a stroke of luck, Linda 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.920 inherited a kind of legitimacy when she arrived. You see, 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.679 the city had recently grandfathered in and granted legality to 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.599 current holistic healthcare practitioners under a new law that was 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:51.440 attempting to legitimize medical practices where she wasn't ever licensed before, 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.480 she now in a way was, and her attitude had 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.560 it changed since Minnesota. It was convenient for Linda to 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.240 be able to blame deceased patient for their own passing. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.160 She argued that the ones who died failed to heed 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.080 her advice completely, claiming that they were negligent and disregarded 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:12.040 her expertise. Authorities couldn't quite figure out how to intervene, 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.320 or if they even needed to. She continued to get 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.480 bad press, but her followers remained faithful. She was a 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:23.200 polarizing character, this Linda Hazard. In nineteen ten, Linda treated 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:27.439 l E. Radar, a locally famous politician. She installed him 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.360 in a Seattle hotel, and no amount of coercing by 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.480 his family could convince him to forego Linda Hazard's fasting cure. 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.160 This would be a fatal mistake. He died within a month, 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.720 but not before bequeathing Linda property. A short boat ride 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.120 off the coast of the city, where she decided that 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:48.280 she would once and for all have her own fasting empire, 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.199 away from the prying eyes of those who had it 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.600 out for her. Wilderness Heights she would call it, but 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.800 it would become known by another name, Starvation Heights, and 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:11.680 few would make it out alive. Claire and Dorothea Williamson 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.640 had come upon a marvelous idea. They had installed themselves 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.040 in the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, to take 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:23.200 another one of their resting cures. They were young, beautiful, rich, 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.720 and likely a little bored. They had lost their parents 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.560 at a young age, who left them an immense fortune 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.240 and undeniable trauma. What's true here is that the two 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.760 women's pain has long been debated, scrutinized, and doubted. According 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.720 to one of their own relatives, Claire and Dorothea are 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.920 ill because they can afford to be. They traveled the 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.720 world with their jam packed steamer trunks filled with fineries 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.200 most could only dream of. But all of this money 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.240 couldn't buy them happiness, and it couldn't buy them health. 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.800 One fall morning in nineteen ten, they eyed a newspaper 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:01.160 advertisement for the Hazard Institute for Natural the Therapeutics. Claire 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.880 responded immediately, writing up a laundry list of diagnoses from 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:10.160 previous doctors, dropped uterus inflamed ovaries, bad knees, and informed 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:14.840 Linda of their intention to come. Linda's Wilderness Heights Sanitarium 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.400 was still under construction and would be through the winter. However, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:20.760 she quickly agreed to take them on his clients, as 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.080 long as they were willing to temporarily be installed in 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.000 a local Seattle hotel for the time being. The sisters 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.160 said nothing of this to their friends and surviving family members. 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.280 They didn't need any extra opinions. They knew what was 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.040 best for themselves, so Dorothea and Claire consented to treatment, 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.720 then arrived in Seattle on February twenty sixth of nineteen eleven. 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.240 For the first time in their lives. They were separated 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.480 and housed in different departments. Linda insisted that this was 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.320 necessary for their own rest and well being, and the 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.160 sisters obliged. The treatment began, and the women were hopeful. 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.560 What they couldn't have known was that they were part 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.400 of Linda's larger plan. Off the coast of Seattle, in 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:01.720 the community of Olala, Wilderness Heights was beginning operations, and 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.280 even though it was newly minted, it had gathered quite 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:08.680 a reputation amongst the locals. They were, in short, somewhat fearful. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.920 The village was made up largely of immigrants, and Linda 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.840 portrayed herself to be a studied, moneyed American doctor. Who 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.680 were they to intervene even if their best senses told 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.000 them that something was very, very wrong. Every now and 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.800 then they might catch glimpses of her patients, skeletal, gaunt 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.200 creatures with tight, pale flesh, taking in the air and 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.320 filled with conviction, or some would wonder later, was that fear. 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.880 But Claire and Dorothea would see this all for themselves 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.120 soon enough. In April of nineteen eleven, over a month 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.880 into treatment and too weak to walk, they were taken 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.680 by stretcher from their hotel to a fairy launch with 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.280 Wilderness Heights as their final destination. It was estimated that 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.120 each were about seventy pounds at the time, all wrapped 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.840 in bandages and barely speaking. Just before boarding the boat, 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.120 they were intercepted by Linda's attorney. He spoke with Claire 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.880 kindly yet authoritatively, giving her a pen and directions of 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.280 what to write on a piece of paper that he supplied, 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:09.480 and most importantly, he needed her signature. The letters intended 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.320 recipient was Margaret Conway, the sister's longtime nurse who lived 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.639 in Australia. But it wasn't a postcard. No, it was 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.560 a codicil to a will naming Linda Hazard and her 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.480 institute as the beneficiary. Claire signed it, it was sealed, 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.479 and the sisters were taken away in a thicket of 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.520 spruce and fir on an island separated from the mainland 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.080 by only a few miles. Claire and Dora might as 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.920 well have been thousands of miles from each other. They 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.320 remained in separate spaces at Linda's insistence, and were totally bedbound. 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.120 She told the sisters that they were healing, but any 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.640 progress would be impaired by distraction. And they missed each 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.240 other mightily, and I have a hard time imagining that 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.920 my faith wouldn't waver at this point. The record isn't 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.679 exactly clear on what happened next, but what we do 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.000 know is that all the way in Australia, the girl's 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:01.159 beloved Margaret Conway received a cryptic telegram from Claire telling 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.879 her to come urgently. She hadn't been in touch with 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:06.720 the sisters and knew that something must be terribly wrong. 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:09.960 She arrived by steamship to Vancouver as soon as she 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.959 could June first of nineteen eleven, and was met by 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.159 Linda Hazzard's now husband Sam. He regretfully informed her the 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.840 Claire was already dead. That was when Margaret realized that 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.920 something terrible had happened and was still happening. She insisted 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.520 on being taken to see both women, one dead and 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.440 one very close to it, and appointed herself as Dorothea's nursemaid. 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.400 In a brazen gesture of hubrists, Linda invited a stunned 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.080 Margaret into her office, where she revealed that she had 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.680 been designated as the executioner of Claire's estate and named 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.639 guardian of Dorothea. She did this all decked out in 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.119 Claire's exquisite dressing gown and jewels. It was clear to 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.359 Margaret that this wasn't Linda's first ruse, but she was 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.960 hell bound and determined to make sure it was her last. 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.840 Margaret wouldn't believe for a single moment a word of 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.199 what Linda was telling her. She quickly deployed telegraphs and 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.639 assembled a team that included a local lawyer by the 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.560 name of John Herbert, who also happened to be Claire 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.000 and Dorothea's uncle. He shelled out a thousand dollars for 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.040 the release of Dorothea into his custody, in a gesture 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.760 that basically amounted to pain a ransom according to Linda Hazard, 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.199 though this was just a fee for services rendered. Of course, 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.480 the authorities, meanwhile, had been waiting to pounce on Linda 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:34.000 for a long long time. The sisters, remember, were not 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.480 the first of her patients for whom she had forged 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.879 checks and signed over estates. So when her predatory business 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.440 practices became clear, the authorities arrested Linda on a charge 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.399 of first degree murder for starving Claire to death. The 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.600 first day of Linda's trial packed the courthouse with curious, 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.040 dubious onlookers, who all heard stories about how the sisters 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.360 screamed in pain during treatments, took physical beatings, and were 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.920 brainwashed into believing that they were going in saying. Those 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.639 on the stand testified that Linda and Sam gorged themselves 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.720 on their patients trappings of wealth, with one claim even 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.159 going so far as to say that Linda's husband, Sam 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.919 took gold crowns from the mouths of dead patience. And 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:17.719 all the while Linda maintained her innocence, she was furious, 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:20.760 insistent that the only reason she was being persecuted was 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.040 because she had been successful in business as a woman. 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:27.720 In the end, she was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.239 to twenty years behind bars for reasons unknown. She was 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.040 released within two catching a ship to New Zealand in 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.600 nineteen twenty, where she opened a sanitarium that specialized in 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.360 you guessed it, the fasting cure. Though not as many 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:43.560 people came as she had hoped, those in her care 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:46.960 continued to die. She again went on trial, paid a 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.040 one hundred dollars fine, and then left the country. She 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:54.000 returned to Olala, to her beloved and bedeviled wilderness heights 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.160 where she could live out the end of her days. 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:59.399 In nineteen thirty eight, she took to bed and began 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.280 her own She was seventy one by now and in 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.760 ill health. She wanted to prove that her method indeed worked. 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.760 On a warm morning in June, she died cold, alone, 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:13.120 emaciated and implicated, in the depths of as many as 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.440 forty individuals under her care, all of whom were free 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.240 to walk out her doors if only their bodies could 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.960 carry them. Obviously, the public interest in people like Linda 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:27.600 Hazard and other fast promoting Charlatan's wasn't eradicated with her trial. 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.719 In fact, a notable contemporary journalist, Upton Sinclair of the 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:36.120 Jungle Fame, published his book The Fasting Cure in nineteen eleven. 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.280 But there's something very important to note here. There's a 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:43.360 marked difference between working to understand the physiology of fasting 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.760 so that we can employ it for our body's well 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.399 being and those who, under the guise of care, exploit 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:53.000 a practice meant to heal for their own ill gotten gain. 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:57.119 And throughout the century, fasting continued to maintain clusters of 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.040 adherence the world over for its social, political, cultural, and 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:05.080 spiritual meaning. In nineteen eighty two, four doctors teamed up 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:07.919 and published a paper in the Western Journal of Medicine. 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.639 They declared that an appreciation and understanding of fasting was 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.800 essential to understanding food as intervention and how food deprivation 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:19.879 works in treating various diseases. They also identified an upward 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.320 trend in the practice and cautioned medical practitioners that they 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.320 needed to take heat about how complicated of a prescription 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.840 it can actually be. Even today, elements of fasting still 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:32.800 show up in many wellness plans. The most popular in 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:37.080 headline grabbing is probably intermittent fasting, but even that is 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:42.639 just another repackaged, repurposed, and reworked fasting cure from yesteryear. 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.520 The desire to diet for preventative measures is present, as 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:49.760 is the promotion of the idea that diet manipulation can 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.040 still be a tool to heal what damage we've already incurred. 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:55.600 There is truth to this, but the idea is a 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.520 slippery one that can lead to many different manners of 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:02.199 disordered eating. Stricting, or whatever name we might give it. 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:05.720 Today is alive and well in our complicated world of eating, 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:17.199 and it shows no sign of ever going away. I 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:19.840 know that this episode was a bit hard to stomach, 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.199 no pun intended, I swear even today, the way that 0:23:23.200 --> 0:23:26.480 we talk about food, think about food and access food 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.000 is a really complicated topic. If you've ever learned anything 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:33.080 about the history of the American food pyramid, for example, 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:36.119 then you'll know a little something about what I'm talking about. 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:39.439 But don't go away just yet. Stick around through this 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.879 brief sponsor break and my teammates Robin Miniter. We'll be 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:52.600 back with one more enlightening story. Once upon a time 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.000