Force-feeding - three case studies

“The Wardresses forced me on to the bed and the two doctors came in with them, and while I was held down a nasal tube was inserted.  It is two yards long with a funnel at the end - there is a glass junction in the middle to see if the liquid is passing.  The end is put up the nostril, one one day, and the other nostril, the other.  Great pain is experienced during the process ...  the drums of the ear seem to be bursting, a horrible pain in the throat and the breast.  The tube is pushed down 20 inches.  I have to lie on the bed, pinned down by Wardresses, one doctor stands up on a chair holding the funnel at arms length, so as to have the funnel end above the level, and then the other doctor, who is behind, forces the other end up the nostrils. 

The one holding the funnel end pours the liquid down; about a pint of milk, sometimes egg and milk are used....  Before and after use, they test my heart and make a lot of examination.  The after-effects are a feeling of faintness, a sense of great pain in the chest, in the nose and the ears.... 

I was very sick on the first occasion after the tube was withdrawn. 

Mary Leigh, describing being force-fed in September 1912.
Mary Leigh was a Suffragette who was the first women to break a window, and later was committed to five years in jail for an arson attack on Dublin Theatre.  In 1919 she had climbed onto the roof of a building and thrown slates at policemen.  She wrote her account while she was still in prison.

Liverpool Jan 29 1910

The Prison Commissioners,

Gentlemen,

I have the honour to report that today I saw and examined Rose E.N. Howey at H.M. Prison, Walton, in consultation with Dr Price.  I also took part in the artificial feeding by tube. 

Rose E.N. Howey is about 25 years of age, a spare, fair com­plexioned woman but highly neurotic.  She was sentenced on January 15th to six weeks imprisonment.  From the records I find that on committal she weighed 114 lbs, and today she weighs 108lb.  Her height is 5ft 5in.  Her lungs and heart are quite healthy; respiration quiet; pulse 72 regular, blood circulation active.  Tongue clean, teeth good, no swelling of stomach; bowels regular; menstrual periods regular; knee jerks excessive.  Her throat is rather small and slightly granular but not inflamed.  She evidently had in childhood post-natal adenoids, but her nostrils are now quite free. 

On passing the tube there was slight spasm at the upper end of the throat 5 to 6 inches from the teeth; this no doubt increases the discomfort of the passage of the tube, but it can be easily got over by using a fine moderately stiff tube.  Personally I would be inclined to leave her without food for two or three days and by that time the spasm will have passed off.  Any ordinary individual can survive with only water for a couple of weeks, and there is no damage to life in a healthy individual from any loss of body weight up to 25 per cent, or say 20 per cent, including the weight of the clothing.  This woman can therefore afford to lose 23 lb without any risk. 

James Barr, a doctor, writing to the Prison Commissioners in 1910.
This account is important, because it gives the lie to the claim that the doctors were force-feeding the women to save their lives - here, the doctor is making it clear that the women was far from death when she was force-fed. 

[The doctor] put down my throat a tube which seemed to me much too wide and was something like four feet in length.  The irritation of the tube was excessive.  I choked the moment it touched my throat until it had got down.  Then the food was poured in quickly; it made me sick a few seconds after it was down and the action of the sickness made my body and legs double up, but the wardresses instantly pressed back my head and the doctor leant on my knees. 

The horror of it was more than I can describe.  I was sick over the doctor and wardresses, and it seemed a long time before they took the tube out.  As the doctor left me he gave me a slap on the cheek, not violently, but as it were, to express his contemptuous disapproval. 

Lady Constance Lytton, describing her own force-feeding in 1910.
Wealthy and titled Suffragettes received preferential treatment in prison, so Lady Constance Lytton pretended to be a poor woman named 'Jane Wharton' and, once in prison, went on hunger strike.  Lady Lytton had a heart problem and poor health, but she was not medically examined before she was force-fed.  The deception was soon discovered and she was released, but she never fully recovered and suffered a stroke in 1912.