It's late in the 18thcentury, and a band of
traveling showmen have put on a strange, wondrous... and rather disgusting show. A single man takes the stage, a rather ordinary
looking individual, not too skinny, not too fat- but rather, pretty average. Then suddenly a basket of apples is handed
to him, and the man swings his jaw open so wide that he pours the entire basket into
his mouth. But he's not done- next he swallows a load
of corks, then stones and finally for the grand finale- a live cat. Who was this real man who could, and did,
eat anything? Welcome to this episode of The Infographics
Show- the man who ate everything from human flesh to live eels. Born with polyphagia, a disorder that causes
extreme hunger, the man known simply as Tarrare had been a big eater his whole life. As a teenager his appetite was so insatiable
that his parents eventually kicked him out, unable to afford the massive amounts of food
it took to keep him satisfied. Falling in with a band of prostitutes and
thieves who discovered him digging through trash for food, he toured France and eventually
Europe, eating everything from rocks to live animals, most notably cats, dogs and eels. On eyewitness wrote of him: “He seized a
live cat with his teeth, eventrated [or disemboweled] it, sucked its blood, and ate it, leaving
the bare skeleton only. He also ate dogs in the same manner. On one occasion it was said that he swallowed
a living eel without chewing it.”It was said that animals fled from the sight of him,
as if knowing the fate that was to befall them. At age 17 Tarrare weighed just 100 pounds
(45kg), and despite his eating of trash and live animals, was certified as sane by various
medical professionals. Tarrare's body however bore the marks of his
extreme eating- his skin would sag after stretching so much in order to fit all the foot he ate,
with the folds of his skin sagging so deeply that it could be tied around his wait like
a belt. His cheeks too would droop down like an elephant's
ears. After eating his body would swell like a balloon,
and afterwards when he used the bathroom, surgeons noted that he left behind a mess
that was “fetid beyond all conception”. Doctors also noted that his body smelled profusely,
so powerfully that as one doctor annotated in his medical records: “He often stank
to such a degree that he could not be endured within the distance of twenty paces.” With a metabolism on overload, Tarrare's body
was hot to the touch, and he sweated constantly. It was said that you could see the sweat and
stink rising off him like a vapor. Joining the army during France's war against
Prussia, Tarrare was upgraded to quadruple rations, but even that wasn't enough to satisfy
his appetite, and so he would often be found digging through trash pits for any edible
scraps. Eventually he was pulled off the front lines
and sent to two military surgeons, Baron Percy and a Doctor Courville. The two took a keen interest in Tarrare and
ran test after test on the poor young man, but were unable to determine the cause of
his affliction. Then one day General Alexandre de Beauharnais
took notice of Tarrare and his unique talents. Given his ability to eat anything, General
de Beauharnais believed Tarrare would make the perfect secret courier to deliver messages
behind enemy lines. Testing his theory, he put a message in a
wooden box and had Tarrare eat it- after passing it a few hours later the message was still
readable. Tarrare was immediately approved for a top-secret
mission. Disguised as a Prussian peasant, Tarrare was
meant to sneak past enemy lines and deliver a message to a captured French colonel, hidden
inside a box safely in Tarrare's stomach. Perhaps because of his sagging skin or putrid
stench, Tarrared was immediately spotted and unable to speak German it didn't take long
for the Prussians to figure out Tarrare was a spy. Stripped, searched, whipped and tortured for
a day, Tarrare finally gave up the plot and told the Germans of the message in his stomach. Chained to a latrine, Tarrare was forced to
pass the message, only to discover that it read simply: let me know if you got this message. It seemed that General de Beauharnais did
not have much faith in Tarrare and had merely been testing the poor boy. The furious Prussian general ordered Tarrare
to be hung, but upon calming down felt a stroke of pity for the miserable french man. Giving him a thorough beating instead, he
sent Tarrare back to the French lines with a warning to never attempt espionage again. Once back across French lines, Tarrare begged
Baron Percy to help him get better so he could be normal. Percy tried everything from wine vinegar,
tobacco pills, laudanum and anything else he could think of in hopes of quenching Tarrare's
appetite- all to no avail. Tarrare meanwhile seemed to only grow in appetite,
seeking out food anywhere he could. Eventually he was discovered drinking the
discarded blood of hospital patients and eating bodies in the morgue. The final straw however would be when a 14
month old baby went missing and rumors spread that Tarrare was behind the disappearance,
at which point Baron Percy chased him away, leaving Tarrare to fend for himself. Four years later Tarrare turned up in a hospital
in Versailles, dying of tuberculosis. Visiting him one last time, Baron Percy decided
to wait until Tarrare's passing and perform an autopsy in hopes of discovering the source
of his terrible appetite. Yet if Tarrare stunk badly while alive, it
hardly compared to the smells that came from his dead body. The doctors that braved the autopsy discovered
that Tarrare's stomach was so large it filled nearly his entire abdominal cavity. His gullet was unusually wide, and his jaw
could stretch so wide that a cylinder a foot in circumference could be put through it. The autopsy had to be cancelled early though
due to the incredible smells coming from Tarrare's body, with Baron Percy writing: “The entrails
were putrefied, confounded together, and immersed in pus; the liver was excessively large, void
of consistence, and in a putrescent state; the gall-bladder was of considerable magnitude;
the stomach, in a lax state, and having ulcerated patches dispersed about it, covered almost
the whole of the abdominal region.” Today we know that there are numerous causes
for polyphagia, including hypoglycemia, hyperthyroidism, and diabetes. Modern medicine believes that it was hyperthyroidism
that afflicted the poor french man, with his thyroid working too quickly and flooding his
body with hormones which would create an insatiable appetite. Whatever the cause, the ultimate eater known
simply as Tarrare is remembered to this day in France, with many other sideshow performers
also suffering from polyphagia often compared to him. What's the strangest thing you've ever eaten? Have you ever seen anyone eat something really
disgusting? Let us know in the comments. Also, be sure to check out our other video
called Could the black death happen again! Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t
forget to like, share, and subscribe. See you next time!”
