A woman who refuses to eat. She will take no nourishment of any kind and rarely leaves her bed. On the other hand, she does seem to be becoming sicker and still retains a healthy form. This mysterious situation is perfect fodder for a case study. Dr. J.S.Mackenzie saw an opportunity to both help this poor girl and write an analysis for the Royal Academy. His 1793 article recounts the doctor’s interviews with the parents and his examinations of the girl. On the surface, the article looks like a purely empirical study of this girl’s condition, but beneath the surface lies the doctor’s subtle use of language to protect the family’s reputation, while asserting his own diagnosis.
Dr. Mackenzie is a well-trained observer, like any good doctor of his time. He does not have the aid of complex medical instruments to examine his patients, just well trained eyes and ears. He uses these tools to construct the case study of Janet MacLeod. The first four pages of his article are merely the patient’s history as told to him by her parents. He recounts her problems from her early teens to the present. He goes into great detail about her seizures, long bouts of being bedridden, and her parent’s struggle to force fe
The remainder of the article tells of the doctor’s own examinations and his path to a cure. By the time the good doctor arrived, the woman had supposedly not eaten substantially in three years. Her jaw was locked and her teeth had been removed to force feed her. Dr. Mackenzie expected to find an emaciated woman clinging to life, but instead he found her “features not disfigured,” her skin to be “natural” and her breasts “round and prominent.” He examines her thoroughly and collects data consistent with that of a healthy woman. Mackenzie does not attempt to explain the data or even put forth a hypothesis. He merely gives a complete, empirical report of his first meeting with the woman. He stays in contact with the parents until there is a break in the case. Janet is found one day out of bed, very actively spinning flax. The doctor returns, reexamines her, forces her to eat and exercise for his own observation and prescribes a strange cure. He feels she is losing too much “saliva” through her exercise and that in turn forces her to become sicker. He advises her to stop spinning flax and start spinning only wool, because it does cause the loss of fluids that flax does. Mackenzie is a detailed observer, but his cure seems like pure bunk even in his time. His scientific process is flawless
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