All along I'd been (naively) assuming that Terri's case was some kind of first, at least on the national scene. But no:
Marjorie had once told her brother Maynard that she didn’t want a feeding tube if she were terminally ill. Despite the fact that she was not dying, Maynard believed that she had meant that she would rather die by dehydration than live the rest of her life using a feeding tube. Accordingly, he ordered all of Marjorie’s nourishment stopped.
As she was slowly dehydrating to death, Marjorie began to beg the staff for food and water.
The Washington Post reports that someone at the hospital restrained her in her bed to prevent her from grabbing food from other patients' plates until she finally died.
This was in 1996. Hat tip: this week's Grand Rounds.
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