Why Scientists Studied a 31-Day Complete Fast in 1912
In 1912, Carnegie Institution scientists conducted the most rigorous study of prolonged fasting ever attempted. Here's what motivated it and what they found.
In April 1912, a multilingual Maltese pharmacist named Agostino Levanzin arrived at the Carnegie Institution's Nutrition Laboratory in Boston and began a 31-day complete fast — consuming nothing but distilled water for the entire period. A team of Harvard and Carnegie scientists surrounded him with equipment: a respiration calorimeter, blood analysis instruments, daily urine collection, grip strength tests, reaction time measures, and psychological examinations. Every day, for more than a month, they measured what happened to the human body when…
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