Beschreibung:

Lot of two photographs of the Minneapolis doctor Henry S. Tanner (1831-1919), who in 1880 famously fasted for 40 days in Clarendon Hall, New York City. Includes a cabinet card by Herr & Co., showing Tanner before the fast, and an uncredited carte de visite showing the effects of the near-starvation. Dr. Tanner's fast was not for any political or religious cause, but for medical research (and a fat wad of cash). There had been much attention devoted to a Brooklyn woman name Mollie Fancher, who claimed to have survived fourteen years without food, but balked at the New York Neurological Society's offer of $1,000 to submit herself to 24-hour-a-day observation for 40 days. Dr. Tanner read of this and came to New York to offer himself as the subject. He fasted successfully for 40 days and collected the $1,000 prize, and made more money lecturing on fasting in the following years. Condition: Light foxing to albumen, and light edge wear.