On This Date in Minnesota History: November 19

November 19, 1902 – Mrs. Gertrude Young passed away today in Minneapolis after a 23-day fast (The Minneapolis Journal claims she fasted for 39 days). She was one of the converts to the fast cure, whose faith in the system, as exploited by a woman physician, led her to adopt the course without hesitation when the doctor advised it.

Mrs. Young was afflicted with paralysis of the right side, and had been ill for several years. Six days before her death, the young woman abandoned fasting, and, it is said, ate too freely. An autopsy is in progress to decide the cause of death.

The news of Mrs. Young’s demise under such circumstances, proved quite a shock to the score or more of Minneapolitans who are now in various stages of the fasting cure. A sort of society of fasters has been formed among patients undergoing this treatment, and they held a meeting this afternoon to talk over the situation, but the proceedings are unobtainable.

One of the patients of the local doctor has been without food for 50 days, and he asserts that there is no doubt about the benefit he has derived from the treatment, while half a dozen other patients express confidence in the merits of the system.

Fasting patient Dora Williams after being rescued from a clinic run by the same doctor¹

Mrs. Young was a widow. She had a stroke of paralysis about a year and a half, recovering very slowly. For six months or more she had been attending to her household duties, and had been considered in improved health.

The woman physician, when seen this afternoon, was emphatic in her characterization of the case. She asserts that when she was called to attend Mrs. Young, the case was turned over to her as one of ordinary paralysis, and she did not find, until her treatment had been in progress for more than two weeks, that there were conditions existing likely to preclude successful treatment.

The physician continued: “I dislike to make the statement which I shall be compelled to make if any official action holds me in any manner responsible for Mrs. Young’s death. The fasting system of cure has so many outright cures of difficult cases to its credit that its merits cannot be doubted by reasonable people, professional or otherwise, and the fuss that is being made about this death savors strongly of professional persecution.”

Friends of Mrs. Young assert that, prior to her commencement of the fasting period, she seemed in better health than she had been enjoying for a long time, and they do not hesitate to attribute her death to the lack of proper nourishment. It is said that a woman in her weakened physical condition could not fast 23-days without being driven to the verge of physical exhaustion.

An autopsy was performed at the state university this afternoon by Coroner Williams, who found that Mrs. Young’s death was caused by exhaustion, due to starvation.

Dr. Williams will lay the matter before the county attorney, with a view to putting a stop to the fasting cure fad.

The Saint Paul Globe; “Faster Dies of Lack of Food. Mrs. Gertrude Young, of Minneapolis, Expires After 23 Days’ Abstinence. Other Converts to the theory Become Worried. Woman Physician Who Prescribed the Fasting Cure Complains That she Was Not Informed of Existing Conditions That Precluded successful Treatment—Makes charge of Professional Persecution.”; Nov. 20, 20, 1902; p. 3.

The Minneapolis Journal; “Starved To Death. Mrs. Gertrude Young Was Going Without Food To Regain her health. She Had “Taken the Cure” for Thirty-nine Days When Death Came.”; Nov. 19, 1902; p. 6.

¹http://www.historylink.org/db_images/DoraWilliamsonStarvingBeforeRescue.jpg

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While neither The Saint Paul Globe nor The Minneapolis Journal article gave the woman physician’s name, Mrs. Young’s obituary in the River Falls Journal, Nov. 20, 1902, says she was Dr. Linda Perry, better known as Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard, the famous starvation doctor.

http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2011/09/linda-burfield-hazzard-medical-serial.html

Dr. Linda Hazzard, formerly of Minneapolis, Minn., charged with murder in the first degree, was unable to obtain $10,000 bail; see Aug. 7, 2016 blog.

The Wash. State Supreme Court today upheld the first degree murder conviction of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard, known as the “starvation doctor.”; see Aug. 12, 2016 blog.

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