Linda Burfield Hazzard

Linda Burfield Hazzard was a quack born in 1867. She practised as a doctor even though she had no medical degree: she called herself an osteopath and a “fasting specialist”.

She became famous for her theories promoting fasting as a cure for many ills, including cancer.

She was born in Carver, Minnesota, the eldest of seven children. At 18 she married and had two children, then left her family and got a divorce so she could pursue her career. She later married Samuel Chrisman Hazzard, who stood by her for the rest of her life.

Career

In Washington State she still obtained a licence to practise thanks to a loophole in the law that allowed some alternative medicine practitioners to work without a degree. She claimed to have studied under Edward Hooker Dewey, a doctor known for promoting fasting, and in 1908 she published the book Fasting for the Cure of Disease.

According to her, fasting was a panacea because it rid the body of the toxins that caused disease. Alongside the fasts came enemas lasting hours and violent massages that patients described as real beatings.

She founded a clinic in Olalla, called Wilderness Heights, where the only therapy was fasting and where patients were given only tomato and asparagus juice and occasionally a spoonful of orange juice. The fast could last days, weeks or even months. Locals called it “Starvation Heights”.

People were literally starving to death, but Linda was so skilled that she convinced them not only that they would recover, but that they would be as healthy as they once were.

So even though they were dying, they stayed there of their own free will. Once they were dead she robbed them of their jewellery and money.

The few who survived sang her praises as a doctor as soon as they left the clinic, and so more people asked to be admitted.

For those who did not make it, on the other hand, it was declared that they had already been suffering from incurable illnesses in an advanced and terminal stage, such as cancer or cirrhosis.

One of them, Seattle engineer Earl Edward Erdman, kept a diary of his weeks of treatment: oranges, strained tomato broth and little else, while he noted dizziness, pain and his racing heart. He died of starvation in hospital on 28 March 1910, shortly before a colleague could give him a blood transfusion.

Arrest

In 1911 she was arrested for the death of Claire Williamson, a wealthy 33-year-old Englishwoman who weighed less than 50 pounds when she died.

At the trial it was proven not only that Linda stole her jewellery, but also that she had forged her will to make herself a beneficiary.

The victim’s sister, Dorothea, known as Dora, testified at the trial because she too had undergone Hazzard’s treatment. She had survived because a family friend, their former governess who came from Australia after a telegram was smuggled out, realised how serious things were and helped her leave: she weighed less than 60 pounds and on her own did not even have the strength to get out of bed.

But she arrived too late to save Claire as well: the woman was already dead.

In 1912 Linda was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 2 to 20 years of hard labour, which she served in the Walla Walla penitentiary. She stayed in prison for only two years: she was paroled on 26 December 1915 and the following year Governor Ernest Lister pardoned her, on condition that she leave the country.

She moved with her husband to New Zealand, where she kept working as a dietitian and osteopath. There she was also fined for calling herself “Doctor” without being a registered medical practitioner.

In 1920 she returned to Olalla and reopened her clinic, presenting it as a “school of health” since her licence had been revoked. The clinic burned to the ground in 1935 and was never reopened.

Death

Linda died on 24 June 1938, aged 70, while trying her fasting cure on herself.

Despite the many deaths at her clinic she became famous, and even wrote several books on her method. At least 15 deaths are attributed to her, but some believe there may have been many more.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Linda Hazzard