Chapter LVIII, Section 1c

But Marcus Damascenus proves it, by many reasons, to be possible and natural, neither doth he think it irrational that some should, without meat and drink, avoiding excitements, and without consuming or corruption, sleep many months. And this may befall a man by reason of some poisonous potion, or sleepy disease, or such like causes, for certain days, months or years, according to the intention or remission of the power of the medicine, or of the passions of their mind. Physicians say that there are some antidotes, of which they that take too great a potion shall be able to endure hunger a long time; as Elias, in former time, being fed with a certain food by an angel, walked and fasted in the strength of that meat forty days. And John Bocatius makes mention of a man in his time, in Venice, who would every year fast four days without any meat; also, a greater wonder, that there was a woman in lower Germany, at the same time, who took no food till the thirteenth year of her age, which, to us, may seem incredible, but that he confirmed it. He also tells of a miracle of our age, that his brother, Nicolaus Stone, an Helvetian by nation, who lived over twenty years in the wilderness without meat till he died. That also is wonderful which Theoprastus mentions concerning a certain man, called Philinus, who used no meat or drink besides milk. And there are also grave authors who describe a certain herb of Sparta, with which, they say, the Scythians can endure twelve days’ hunger, without meat or drink, if they do but taste it, or hold it in their mouth.