Anorexia is more and more a problem today, not only of girls and young women, but more and more also of young men. Stars and starlets show them, that only very thin people are cool and that all other people are not cool and don’t have success or friends. Look at those Hollywood-„beauties“ who look like skeletons and who always make diets which let you shudder. Is it sexy making such wacky diets? I think: No! But more and more normal young people think that they only have worth if they look like these role models.
You know that I’m a history-nerd, so you may ask: And what the heck is the historic part of anorexia? Wait and you will see!
There is a book for children in Germany, a very old book, the „Struwwlpeter“ (The Tousle-Head). In the year 1844 Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann, chief physician and youth-psychiatrist of the Institute for Psychotics and Epileptics of Frankfurt, was looking for a Christmas present for his three year old son Carl, but he couldn’t find anything he liked for his son. So he bought an exercise book and decided to write a picture-book for his son. His little son enjoyed the book very much, but also friends who came for a visit and saw the little book. So a friend, Zacharias Loewenthal, could persuade him allowing him to publish the book. In 1845 the first printed book was sold. The book contains stories of children, who weren’t well-behaved and therefore they suffer a lot of calamities: The bad Friederich, who uses to torture animals get his well deserved punishment, Paulinchen burns, because she plays with match sticks, children who deride black people where dipped into a huge inkstand by Santa Claus and were also black afterwards, and so on. (Picture: Cover of the book of 1917)
Picture: Santa is dipping the nasty children into an inkstand
Picture: Now the black-colored nasty children follow the poor boy they had derided formerly
But the story I want to tell you today is the story of the „Suppenkaspar (Soup-Kaspar; Kaspar is an old prename for boys). This story describes fort he first time in literature someone who suffers from Anorexia and it might be, that Heinrich Hoffmann described cases of Anorexia he had treated as a psychiatrist for children. Until the last century hunger and famines have been part of the lives and therefore it might has been a very absurd idea refusing all food. Today it seems to be likely that the story has had a real background. At Leoben there has been a grave at the Jakobi-Cemetery until 20 years ago which belonged to a nine year old boy. On the gravestone there could be read: Soup-Kaspar. In the church records the pastor has remarked as reason for his death: „He refused eating; died therefore in 1834“. We don’t know if Hoffmann had seen the grave, but maybe he has heard of this case. The grave of „Soup-Kaspar“ was removed in 1984, when there was built a highway.
So I’m going to try a translation of the German poem of the „Suppenkaspar“. But I’m no Mark Twain, who translated the picture book into English. So please don’t resent me that it doesn’t rhyme.
The story of Soup-Kaspar
Kaspar, he was fit as a fiddle;
A fat boy and roly poly.
He had fat cheeks,
so red and fresh:
His soup he always ate at table.
But some day he began to cry:
I don’t eat soup! No!
I don’t eat my soup!
No, my soup I don’t eat!
The very next day –
come on and look!
He was much skinnier.
But again he started to cry:
I don’t eat soup, no!
I don’t eat my soup!
No, my soup I don’t eat!
On the third day, o dear!
Kaspar was so thin and weak!
But when the soup came in
He immediately began to cry:
I don’t eat soup, no!
I don’t eat my soup!
No, my soup I don’t eat!
At the fourth day at least
Kaspar was like a little twine.
He weighed perhaps a half gram –
And he was dead on day five.
Picture: Original page with the poem of the "Suppenkaspar"
During the last few decades the book of Hoffmann was dismissed by modern educationists, but it is partly rehabilitated now and every person knows the stories. Some sayings are used in the normal all-day language and above all children in the kindergarten love this book.
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Pictures: Public domain
Source: Wikipedia; Der Struwwelpeter
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