Observing Doctors Simply Let These Girls Pass Away in the Name of Science
Many of these girls were used as science experiments. They were often observed and allowed to starve to death without any intervention. A 21-year old woman named Lenora Eaton was yet another “fasting girl” who lived in New Jersey. Many people in Eaton’s town claimed that she was someone who “lived without eating”, and that she was a “special person and symbol of faith in the miraculous”. In 1881, doctors were sent to investigate her case. During the investigation, she refused to eat. Forty-five days later, she passed away. A similar case cropped up 5 years later when a 21-year old named Adeline Finch in New York refused to eat, this time for 86 days. An autopsy was performed on Adeline’s body, and she was perfectly healthy aside from the starvation. So they decided that this was caused by a “mental or nervous affection”.