ABSTINENCE, in a general sense, the act or habit of refraining from something to which there is a strong propensity. Among the Jews, various kinds of abstinence were ordained by their law. The Pythagoreans, when initiated, were enjoined to abstain from animal food, except the remains of sacrifices; and to drink nothing but water, unless in the evening, when they were permitted to take a small portion of wine. Among the primitive Christians, some denied themselves the use of such meats as were prohibited by that law, others regarded this abstinence with contempt; of which St Paul gives his opinion, Rom. xiv. 1-3. The council of Jerusalem, which was held by the apostles, enjoined the Christian converts to abstain from meats strangled, from blood, from fornication, and from idolatry. Abstinence, as prescribed by the gospel, is intended to mortify and restrain the passions, to humble our vicious natures, and by that means raise our minds to a due sense of devotion. But there is another sort of abstinence, which may be called ritual, and consists in abstaining from particular meats at certain times and seasons. It was the spiritual monarchy of the western world which first introduced this ritual abstinence, the rules of which were called rogations; but grossly abused from the true nature and design of fasting. In England, abstinence from flesh has been enjoined by statute since the Reformation, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays, on vigils, and on all commonly called fish days. The like injunctions were renewed under Queen Elizabeth; but at the same time it was declared that this was done, not out of motives of religion, as if there were any difference in meats, but in favour of the consumption of fish, and to multiply the number of fishermen and mariners, as well as to spare the stock of sheep. The great fast, says St Augustin, is to abstain from sin.
ABSTINENCE is more particularly used for a spare diet or a slender parsimonious use of food. Physicians relate wonders of the effects of abstinence in the cure of many disorders, and protracting the term of life. The noble Venetian Cornaro, after all imaginable means had proved vain, so that his life was despaired of at 40, recovered, and lived to near 100, by the mere effect of abstinence; as he himself gives the account. It is indeed surprising to what a great age the primitive Christians of the East, who retired from the persecutions into the deserts of Arabia and Egypt, lived, healthful and cheerful, on a very little food. Cassian assures us, that the common rate for 24 hours was 12 ounces of bread, and pure water: with such frugal fare St Anthony lived 105 years; James the Hermit, 104; Arsenius, tutor of the Emperor Arcadius, 120; St Epiphanius, 115; Simeon the Stylite, 112; and Romauld, 120. Indeed, we can match these instances of longevity at home. Buchanan informs us, that one Laurence arrived at the great age of 140 by force of temperance and labour; and Spotswood mentions one Kentigern, afterwards called St Mongah or Mungo, who lived to 185 by the same means. Abstinence, however, is to be recommended only as it means a proper regimen; for in general it must have bad consequences when observed without a due regard to constitution, age, strength, &c. According to Dr Cheyne, most of the chronicl diseases, the infirmities of old age, and the short lives of Englishmen, are owing to repletion, and may be either cured, prevented, or remedied by abstinence; but then the kinds of abstinence which ought
Abstiments to be observed, either in sickness or health, are to be deduced from the laws of diet and regimen.
Among the inferior animals, we see extraordinary instances of long abstinence. The serpent kind, in particular, bear abstinence to a wonderful degree. We have seen rattlesnakes which had lived many months without any food, yet still retained their vigour and fierceness. Dr Shaw speaks of a couple of cerastes (a sort of Egyptian serpents), which had been kept five years in a bottle close corked, without any sort of food, unless a small quantity of sand in which they coiled themselves up in the bottom of the vessel may be reckoned as such; yet when he saw them, they had newly cast their skins, and were as brisk and lively as if just taken. But it is natural for divers species to pass four, five, or six months every year, without either eating or drinking. Accordingly, the tortoise, bear, dormouse, serpent, &c. are observed regularly to retire, at those seasons, to their respective cells, and hide themselves, some in the caverns of rocks or ruins; others dig holes under ground; some get into woods, and lay themselves up in the clefts of trees; others bury themselves under water, &c. And these animals are found as fat and fleshy, after some months' abstinence, as before—
Phil. Trans. No. 131. Sir G. Ent1 weighed his tortoise several years successively, at its going to earth in October, and coming out again in March; and found, that of four pounds four ounces, it only used to lose about one ounce.
We have alleged instances of men passing several months as strictly abstinent as other creatures. In particular, the records of the Tower mention a Scotsman imprisoned for felony, and strictly watched in that fortress for six weeks, during which time he did not take the least sustenance; and on this account he obtained his pardon. Numberless instances of extraordinary abstinence, particularly from morbid causes, are to be found in the different periodical Memoirs, Transactions, Ephemerides, &c., as Birch's History of the Royal Society, in the writings of Planque, of Hooglied and Haller; but the investigations of this latter author led to the conclusion, that the extreme cases of persons sustaining inanition for months, or even years, are more than apocryphal, the consequences of very inaccurate observation in the investigators, or of deception in the pretended sufferers; yet Haller gives instances of persons affected by peculiar cerebral diseases, or in extremely low states of the system, surviving inanition until the 8th, 9th, 13th, and even the 21st day. The recent cases of John Brown, an Ayrshire miner, who lived 23 days buried in a coal-mine, without swallowing anything but small quantities of a chalybeate water sucked through a straw, is a well-authenticated instance of how little will sustain life, especially in a contaminated atmosphere, which, by diminishing nervous excitability, would mitigate the cravings of hunger. The fasting woman of Rossshire, described by Pennant, is not one of absolute want of food, but one in which we see how small a quantity of nutriment will sustain life for years in a person suffering under a cerebral affection. Anne Moore, the fasting woman of Tulbury, was an impostor detected at length by Dr Alexander Henderson. How far nutrition is aided by absorption by the lungs and the skin, is not ascertained; and it is not improbable that each process may contribute to prolong life in real cases of starvation.