Newspaper Clipping of the Day

"An Unmade Bed," Eugene Delacroix

This account of a man with unusual ideas about healthy living appeared in the "Birmingham Journal" on January 11, 1862.  It is a reprint of a story that appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for March, 1753.  (Via Newspapers.com)

At Burcott, near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, lives John Tallis, whose manner of life is very extraordinary. He was born at Solihull in Warwickshire about the year 1676. In the beginning of 1724, being then about forty-eight years of age, he caused a room to be prepared for his reception, with such scrupulous diligence to prevent the accession of fresh air, that only one window was admitted, consisting but of four panes, and the glass was directed to be more than thrice as thick as common, from an opinion that by a body so subtle as the air thin glass might be pervaded. 

To this room he retired from the world; but still regarding that fluid which supplies to all animals the breath of life, his mortal enemy, he thought some further precaution necessary for his defense.  Therefore he went to bed, from which he has not since risen; and as his head in this situation is chiefly exposed, he has covered it with swathings, wrappers and caps, that consist of near 100 yards of flannel; and he is often as long and as busily employed in adjusting the several strings by which these innumerable coverings are secured, as a sailor in righting his tackle after a storm. 

He has stoppers fitted to each nostril; he usually holds a piece of ivory in his mouth, and a piece of woollen cloth is laid over his face; his shirts are lined with swanskin, and the breast and sides are quilted. When I beheld him, he opened his eyes, and stretched himself like a bat that is just awaking from a sleep of six or seven months: but as he awaked thirsty and disordered, he reached his cup, which was constantly placed near him with some cooling liquor; and having drank, he exhibited his right hand decorated with many rings, which he surveyed with great appearance of satisfaction and complacency, and entered into a description of Babel, the Nile, and crocodiles. 

With respect to his religious opinion, he is a Quietist; and though he is not useful, he is at least harmless. There appears to be some tincture of avarice in his disposition, and the dark corner into which he is retired from the more fashionable vanities of life, does not appear wholly to have excluded affectation and pride. 

There is no need to caution mankind against his peculiar extravagancies, and it might be thought that there was as little reason to recommend them as patterns of imitation. However, though I do not wish the ladies to adopt his headdress of 100 yards of flannel, yet I think they should not sacrifice the vigour of health and the bloom of beauty, to a fly-cap or any fashionable mode of more southern climates, till our air is equally temperate by the return of the sun; and that they would no longer increase the infelicities of our long season of darkness, by giving it power to rob us of that, without which the sweetness of spring, and the splendor of summer, would cease to be the means of happiness.

Although one might assume Mr. Tallis' aversion to air would not be conducive to a long life, it was not until he reached the venerable age of 80 in 1755 that he finally achieved his ultimate goal, and ceased to breathe at all.