A woman who ate 'nothing' for 40 years was dubbed a 'breathing skeleton'. Mary Thomas, from a small village in Wales, was said to be bed-ridden for over 70 years before her death in the early 1800s, .
She began to suffer an illness in her teenage years, with Wales Online reporting one account from the time showed she had seemingly not consumed food for four decades.
Her face was remarked as “lank and leathery” and her hands were “so thin and transparent that a candle may be seen through them”. Other accounts suggested Mary had not eaten for at least ten years. The curios tale began to attract major attention during the period.
In a letter published anonymously in Cambrian Popular Antiquities (1815), a man who visited the family wrote: “I remarked that she has a strong desire to represent herself as a wonder." Accounts suggest in the village of Llangelynin, English nobles would visit her home and, in one account, a member of the Royal Family was said to be present before her death at 89 years old.
Some believed she, however, did in fact eat in secret but kept up her 'frightful appearance' guise for visitors. A similar story was the subject of Netflix film The Wonder starring Florence Pugh in which she plays the role of a nurse who visits a fictional 19th-century Irish town to treat a young girl who claimed to survive solely on “manna from heaven” in what the film assesses as a miracle.
One of the first to inspect Mary, however, was travel writer Thomas Pennant, who in his book, The Journey to Snowdon met the woman in her late 40s.
He wrote: “Her attendant told me, that her disposition of mind was mild; her temper even; that she was very religious, and very fervent in prayer: the natural effect of the state of her body, long unembarrassed with the grossness of food, and a constant alienation of thought from all worldly affairs.”
Stories tell that her parents did seek a cure for the illness in the early stages but that it did return. Her mother sought intervention from God as Pennant continued: “During two years and a half, (she) remained insensible, and took no manner of nourishment, notwithstanding her friends forced open her mouth with a spoon, to get something down. But the moment the spoon was taken away, her teeth met, and closed with vast snapping and violence: during that time, she flung up vast quantities of blood.”
Pennant claimed she fasted for seven-and-a-half years while two writers from Oxford's Ashmolean museum touted a whopping fort years without sustenance. He also insists there were ways for her to consume something.
He added: “Sometimes a spoonful of wine. But frequently (she) abstains whole days from food and liquids. She sleeps very indifferently: the ordinary functions of nature are very small, and very seldom performed.”
One account tells of Mary's hobby of baking bread, which she could do from the confines of her bed. An artist, Edward Pugh, who sketched her portrait in her later years commented: “It has been asserted by some people, that Mary Thomas is an artful woman. That her illness has been feigned, to deceive the charitable stranger; and that her abstinence by day, is compensated by her voluptuous appetite being amply satisfied at night; and this was even told me by a gentleman in the neighbourhood.
“Is it not surprising, that people will so far suffer prejudice to get the better of their understanding, as to deny the truth of an extraordinary operation of Providence, for no other reason than that it appears unaccountable to them? Is it likely that a gay, young, and sprightly girl, at the artless age of 15, could have the courage to adopt an austere, rigid way of life: a mode of existence so shocking, that the very soul would naturally revolt from it.
"That she would abandon her companions, and those innocent pastimes and pleasures..... for the bitter potion of a perpetual imprisonment? Such a supposition is an egregious absurdity, broached by ignorant and unfeeling minds, without the slightest foundation of truth or probability.”
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
READ NEXT:
- Young mum issues warning after being told cancerous lump was nothing to worry about
- Owner of Scots restaurant ravaged by huge blaze 'devastated'
- Video footage captures horror moment car flips onto roof on busy Scots motorway
- Scots mum devastated after five-year-old with 'tonsillitis' given leukaemia diagnosis
