Alexander Henderson had heard some strange things in his day.

As a doctor, he liked solving the body's mysteries.

But what, or who, waited for him in Tutbury, a small village in Staffordshire, was something

or someone that even he couldn't quite understand. His patient that day was a local

resident by the name of Anne Moore, who claimed to have not eaten since 1807. The year, by the way,

was now 1812. Anne had long ago ceased to just be a local oddity. Now she was a global superstar.

She had become famous for claiming to

survive without food. There was now even a wax replica of her across the ocean in a Boston museum.

But it wasn't Anne that called for Alexander's counsel that day. She actually didn't need a thing.

Rather, he was going to surprise her. This was an ambush,

and Alexander wanted to prove her grift, once and for all. When he and his traveling companion

arrived at her home, they found her in bed. She was seemingly unperturbed by their sudden appearance,

and for someone who supposedly hadn't eaten in years, her body told an interesting

story. Her lower half did indeed look a bit withered, but she overall looked healthy. She was

50 years old, and claimed to have had no food for five years, and no drink for four of those,

and she told them that she hadn't defecated in five years, nor urinated in three.

However, Alexander's own sense told him otherwise, with the odor of soiled bedclothes

hanging heavy in the room.

Even though Alexander didn't believe Anne's claims, her community certainly did.

They wanted to.

You see, she stood for something much larger than herself, and she wasn't the only

girl or woman to take up this starvation path. For centuries, the ability to survive without

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