Dies On 70th Day of His Third Fast

1916

FAILS IN FIVE ATTEMPTS TO TAKE FOOD.

Fasting, Weapon With Which Doctor Fought Death, Finally Turns Against Him.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Dr. H. G. Huffman, faster, died at City Hospital on the seventieth day of his fast. He was unconscious before he died. His wife was at his bedside.

Dr. Huffman began his fast June 30. He tried to eat on August 9, but found food would not agree with him.

"Nature has not yet eliminated the poisons from my system," said Huffman. "When that is done, I will be able to eat."

Again on August 20 Huffman tried to break his fast with the same result. But Huffman was not worried. Then on August 22, September 1 and September 2, he tried to eat. Each time he found his stomach refused to take food.

Wife Shares His Confidence.

Dr. Huffman's wife, who was with him thruout his fast, shared her husband's confidence that he would recover. She respected his wishes that no doctor be called to treat him.

When Huffman lapsed into unconsciousness Mrs. Huffman began to fear for his life. She called his brother and they had the doctor removed to Dr. C. A. Davey's nature sanitarium at Youngstown. Davey was the only man Huffman would allow to treat him.

Later Huffman's brother had him removed to City Hospital. Doctors there tried to give him nourishment but failed.

Fasting, which killed Huffman, was the weapon with which he believed he was fighting death. Two years ago doctors told him he had not long to live. He went to a lonely spot on the Grand River, near Geneva, and set up his camp, which he named Camp Phoenix. There for 47 days he went without food.

When Dr. Huffman returned to his practice as an oculist in Youngstown he became apparently strong and well in a few months.

Doctor's Bride Fasts, Too.

The next year Huffman returned to Camp Phoenix and fasted 30 days. Again he came thru feeling "like a new man."

Then a few days after his fast Huffman was married under the spreading trees of Camp Phoenix, where he had won back health.

"I shall fast with my husband next year," the bride said after the wedding. "It has helped my husband and it will help me."

True to her promise, Mrs. Huffman joined her husband on his third fast. She went sixteen days without food. She broke her fast August 9, the day of her husband's first unsuccessful attempt to take food.

Mere Skeleton When He Dies.

Then while Dr. Huffman lay on a cot of pine boughs Mrs. Huffman busied herself about Camp Phoenix canning wild berries.

"My husband is not eating now, but he does in the winter," she merrily told visitors.

The Huffmans left Camp Phoenix as they had lived in it, with the rows of fruit jars arranged on shelves.

Huffman was a mere skeleton when he died. Doctors said that only remarkable strength and faith in his final recovery kept him alive for nearly seventy days.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 11.