The Story of Starvation Heights

Linda Burfield Perry Hazzard, a notorious early 20th-century quack, operated a "fasting sanitarium" in Washington state, claiming that starvation, enemas, and violent massage could cure all diseases by eliminating undigested food. Her practice gained infamy when wealthy sisters Claire and Dora Williamson sought her care; Claire starved to death under Hazzard’s supervision, while Dora barely survived. Hazzard’s fraudulent methods included seizing control of her patients' estates and falsifying death certificates to attribute fatalities to pre-existing conditions rather than starvation. Despite a manslaughter conviction and a brief prison sentence, Hazzard continued her practices in New Zealand, eventually dying while attempting her own fasting cure. Her case remains a landmark example of medical exploitation, highlighting the lack of regulation in early 20th-century alternative medicine and the lethal consequences of prioritizing profit over patient welfare.