Linda Burfield Hazzard

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Linda Hazzard was the first doctor in the United States to earn a medical degree as a "fasting specialist." Fasting had heretofore been considered a quack medical cure, popular with "health faddists" of the time. In 1908 she published a book, Fasting For The Cure Of Disease, promoting fasting as a cure for virtually every ailment, including cancer.

She created a "sanitarium", Wilderness Heights, in Olalla, Washington, where in-patients fasted for days, weeks or months, with a diet of small amounts of tomato and asparagus soup and little else. While some patients survived and publicly sang her praises, more than 40 patients died under her care, most from starvation. Local residents knew the place as "Starvation Heights".

In 1912 she was convicted of manslaughter for the death of Claire Williamson, a wealthy British woman of 33 years, who weighed less than 50 pounds at the time of her death. At the trial it was proved that Hazzard had forged Williamson's will and stole most of her valuables. Claire's sister, Dora, also took the treatment, and only survived because a family friend showed up in time to remove her from the compound. She was too weak to leave on her own, weighing less than 60 pounds. She later testified against Hazzard at trial.

After only 2 years in prison, she reopened her sanitarium in 1920. Though it burned to the ground shortly thereafter and was never rebuilt, its legend is still powerful in Olalla, and visitors to the grounds as recently as a decade ago have still found remnants of her presence in trash and debris in the underbrush. Her book continues to influence a small fasting movement to this day, with proponents claiming it as a true cure-all.