Between 1808 and 1813, considerable interest was excited by various notices, in the newspapers and journals, respecting a woman of the name of Moore, living at Tutbury, in Staffordshire, who, from long illness, and other causes, was reported to have lost all desire for food, and at length acquired the art of living without any nourishment at all. No great alteration was visible in her appearance, her memory was very strong, and her piety extremely edifying. Being backed by medical testimony, the account was received as entitled to some credit; but all doubts were removed by watching the patient for sixteen days and nights, which took place in September 1808. From that time she attracted crowds of visiters from all parts of the country, who witnessed her condition with a sort of religious awe, and seldom quitted her without exercising their generosity towards her. Dr. Henderson visited her in 1812, in company with Mr. Lawrence. She was in bed, with a large Bible before her; she asserted she had tasted no solid food for upwards of five years, and no drink for four, and had no desire for either; and that she had not slept or lain down in bed for more than three. They left her, fully satisfied, from certain circumstances, that the history of her long fasting was a mere fabrication; and Dr. Henderson adduced many arguments to prove the absurdity of the imposture. The greatest wonder in the history was the blind infatuation of those who could for an instant entertain an idea of its truth. Her dread of the repetition of the watching was a very suspicious circumstance, and seemed to imply that she had narrowly escaped detection; she said, that for nobody in the world would she undergo a repetition; her attendant styled it “a trial for her life.” Yet watching her for a fortnight, though sufficiently irksome, could have had nothing alarming, unless it involved the risk of starvation, which, it was afterwards proved, it did in reality.