What Happened to the Man Who Ate Everything He Saw?

hey 42 here in 1798 british forces fighting against revolutionary france captured a friendship the hush off the coast of ireland and the soldiers and sailors on board were taken to a prison camp near liverpool in those days prisoners of war were given standard rations paid for by their own country so france was footing the bill for these men normally that was no bother but it just so happens there was one man on board the host ship he would really mess with the french army's accountants born in poland charles de mary was a man with an enormous and unusual appetite who could and would eat almost anything he'd initially enlisted in the prussian army as a teenager fighting against a french in the war of the first coalition which was basically an attempted land grab by other european monarchs whilst the french revolutionaries were rising up and executing their own king louis xv but his service there did not last long as the prussian army was suffering from food shortages and this guy knew where his priorities lay demary promptly marched into the town his comrades were besieging and surrendered to the french general there in return for a large melon which he ate rained and all on the spot demary then joined the french fighting against his former prussian employers and his eating habits soon shocked his new colleagues while stationed at an army base near paris he was so unsatisfied with the rations he was receiving that he ate 174 cats in a single year only killing them first if he wasn't already too hungry and he would regularly consume a kilogram or two of grass a day if other food wasn't available to mary's preference however was for meat and he liked it raw his favorite dish was raw bull's liver but he soon showed that trifling things like morality wouldn't stop him from trying other delicacies whilst on board the soon to be captured hush a fellow sailor had his legs shot clean off by cannon fire and damari took the chance to chow down it said the severed limb had to be pulled from his teeth and thrown into the sea when the heart was captured by the british de mary didn't stay a prisoner of war for long he soon became an experimental subject for fascinated british doctors he was already on 10 rations a day when physicians tested his appetite by offering him raw cows order beef by the bucket load and even several pounds of tallow candles all of which he happily wolfed down whilst it isn't recorded what became of de mary after the experiments ran their course doctors today remained fascinated by his story what caused his unusual appetite it's been suggested that some form of malnourishment local to the region where he lived and served caused the mary's insatiable hunger a theory that may be given weight by the tale of a frenchman called terrari because curiously enough damari was not the only incredible eater present in the war of the first coalition and if you thought charles de mary was weird then loosen that belt a notch because we're just getting 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i'm amazed at the wealth of information in this deep dive into the surprisingly lucrative storage industry did you know the storage unit industry has an extremely low failure rate under 10 right now you can get your first two weeks for just one dollar go to trends.co 42 for your one dollar two-week trial don't miss this one guys the man known as terraree was born to poor parents around 1772 in the french countryside near lyon and lived during the french revolution which was pretty unfortunate for him france's population exploded in the 18th century increasing by almost 50 percent which combined with years of poor harvests created severe food shortages these were prime conditions for a political uprising and definitely not the time for a rural peasant family to have a son that was an eating machine not that you'd know it to look at him terrari was at first glance fairly unremarkable he was of average height and weight and standard issue fair hair but that was where his normality ended look closer and you'd notice the unusually thin lips the wide mouth filled with stained teeth and a pair of permanently bloodshot eyes at the age of 17 tarare was capable of eating a quarter of a cow about 50 kilograms of meat close to his own body weight in a single day it's no surprise his parents quickly kicked him out of the family home unable to provide for his extraordinary needs a lonely hungry teenager tararee was initially reduced to begging and stealing to get by until he found the company of a rather unsavory band of travellers but as we'll see unsavory wasn't a problem for terrari his newfound bodies turned out to be a group of thieves and prostitutes who posed as street performers to rob their audience whilst one of them would entertain the crowd the rest would slip through it nimble fingers sliding coins from pockets in terraria they'd found a gem of an act someone who would captivate huge crowds with ease as for terrari the show itself was his reward since he'd challenge onlookers to give him anything to eat and no matter how unbelievable or inedible the item he'd consume it some of the feats made use of the quirks of his anatomy whether natural or a result of his constant eating he could fit a dozen eggs in his cheeks like some sort of giant hamster he could also toss whole apples straight down his throat and would do so by the basket load then came the stranger items corks rocks bits of metal all gobbled up with ease but his favorite delicacies as well as the ones that really drew a crowd were live animals particularly snakes they went down the same way as everything else thrown into tarara's belly without a second fort as terrari performed and by performed i mean stuffed his face with things he shouldn't have to the delight and disgust after watching crowd his stomach would expand swelling up like a balloon and giving him the appearance of a heavily pregnant woman such fluctuations in size on a regular basis took their toll on tararva's body the skin of his stomach was so loose he could as another parlor trick as if he needed any more tie it around his own waist like a belt made of his own skin how they haven't made a horror movie about this guy yet i have no idea because being in close proximity to terrari was a pretty horrific experience his sagging skin was hot to the touch and he sweated constantly his unique body odor caused by all the raw meat and god knows what else he ate was so fouled it was said to manifest itself as a visible vapour which rose from his skin that's right terrari gave off real life cartoon style stink lines most people couldn't stand to be within 20 paces of him which by the standards of 18th century french peasants is some going he also suffered somewhat predictably from bouts of flatulence and this may be where his name comes from you see there's some debate over whether terrari was his real name or a nickname and those that argued the latter point to bomb bomb terrari a popular french phrase at the time to describe loud powerful explosions much like the man's intestinal orchestra as well as his own unique scent terrare's behavior was unusual too affected either by his diet or the underlying condition which caused his appetite he was constantly tired and distracted showing many of the classic warning signs of being extremely malnourished despite the fact he was constantly chowing down on almost every edible thing inside and plenty that wasn't edible his notoriety grew and just as robbie williams would centuries later terraria decided he was too popular for the other chumps in his troop it was time to strike out as a solo act he left leon behind and headed to paris to perform at such prestigious venues as pon nuth the bridge that was the bustling center of the city for crime and commerce alike at the time his shows were just as popular in the capital as they had been before as much as success can be defined by crowds continuing to gather and giving him inedible objects to swallow but there was one notable hiccup one day during his regular act terrare suffered a severe intestinal blockage and became quite unwell even by his own foul standards it's not known what object finally proved too much for his poor tortured insides but the assembled crowd carried terrari to ottel due a hospital near notre dame here he was provided with the strongest laxatives french medicine had to offer and well they did their job and it's best we leave it at that some of you are probably eating right now once cured terrare was quickly back to his confident self boldly offering to swallow the doctor's pocket watch as proof of his recovery the doctor agreed on one condition that he was then allowed to cut terrare open to retrieve the watch so much for the hippocratic oaf terraria wisely refused after this close call not [Music] pressed into available service whilst we're not sure why he joined the army or how willing a decision it was it seems unlikely that meagan military food supplies were part of his thought process due to his voracious appetite he was provided with quadruple rations and he'd trade favors with other soldiers in return for more food but even that wasn't enough and such was his hunger terrare was soon reduced to scrounging through rubbish heaps for scraps now this may all sound a little far-fetched but one it's gonna get a lot wilder and two tarare's condition is surprisingly well documented that's because he was sent to an army hospital in eastern france near the german border suffering from exhaustion there his insatiable cravings which saw him eat hospital bandages gained him the attention of a well-known and highly respected doctor baron pierre francois percy is one of the pioneers of military surgery he was chief surgeon to the french army as well as a university professor the inventor of several battlefield medical implements and should probably be considered an all-around trustworthy guy alongside the other military doctors at the hospital baron percy performed several experiments on terrari which he detailed in notes and reports featured in reputable medical texts such as the study of medicine popular physiology and the london medical and physical journal it is from these published medical works that the majority of the information we know about terraria originates whilst psychological testing found he was apathetic but otherwise pretty sane the physical test terraria was put through delivered remarkable results the doctors first set out an enormous spread a meal meant for 15 labourers terrari ate and drank everything which included gargantuan meat pies and four gallons of milk before falling into an almighty food coma and eventually waking up hungry again clearly volume wasn't a problem for this eating machine so what about the animals that supposedly made up terraria's street show dubious of his claims the doctors gave him a live eel and watched as he crushed its head between his teeth then swallowed it whole dozens of spiny ribs and all bear in mind this was nearly a hundred years before the heimlich maneuver became common practice yet somehow terrari never choked to death on any of the bones or other assorted odds and ends he consumed now eels up inside you is one thing but pet lovers may want to mute this part because it's only going to get worse from here next on the menu was a cat which according to percy's notes terrare tore in half and eviscerated before eating everything but the bones then displaying abilities that oddly mirrored his meals he coughed up the fur for some reason these experiments continued you'd have thought once they'd seen he could eat animals that would be that but no next came lizards snakes ferrari's favorite flesh apparently and even puppies all were consumed with apparent relish at some point in all of this the french army politely inquired as to whether terraria would be rejoining his comrades in military duty but percy and his colleagues were a canny bunch and where most people would have simply been disgusted the doctors had spotted an opportunity their last experiment was to see if terraria could swallow and then pass documents if they were secured within a small container they had him swallow a box with a note inside which shall we say re-emerged the following day intact and legible ferrari repeated this trick at french army headquarters possibly even in the presence of napoleon himself and suddenly this noxious insatiable man transformed from a burden into an asset it was friends general alexandre de buane who decided to use terrari as a covert messenger the plan was to send him across the german border into prussia to deliver a message safely and sconced in his gut to an imprisoned french colonel terraria's payment for the mission was a wheelbarrow full of 30 pounds of bull organs which he received in advance and ate immediately in front of the assembled military commanders i prefer paypal but each to their own was this the start of a new chapter in terraria's life as a brilliant spy sadly not disguised as a prussian peasant he was unsurprisingly captured a short distance into germany why unsurprisingly well no doubt they could smell him a mile away and he was presumably eating everything in sight but what really gave the game away was that terrari didn't speak a word of german it's safe to say he wasn't exactly james bond the prussian forces that had captured him led by general zergley tortured him for information to terrare's credit he lasted a full day before he gave up his mission telling them about the box in his stomach but since he had no idea what the message actually said what was there to do but to chain him to a toilet and wait sadly both the prussians and terrari were in for a surprise the note after all that was of little importance some accounts claimed it simply asked the recipient to let de bohanes know if the message had been received clearly this had merely been a test run to see if terraria could really be of use the prussians weren't too pleased by this development i'm guessing the guy that fished the box out of terrare's still warm excrement was especially miffed general zergley had terraria whipped beaten and marched to the gallows to be executed but at the last moment as the noose was tightened around terraria's neck zergly called the execution off whether it was a nasty trick planned from the start or a genuine just in time change of heart we'll never know but eventually terrari was released back to france with little more than a slap on the wrist finally fed up excused upon of being defined by his eating abilities tararee returned to the military hospital and begged to be cured of his condition to his credit baron percy tried a host of different remedies from wine vinegar to tobacco pills to lordanim a solution of opium and alcohol terrari was even put on a diet consisting exclusively of soft-boiled eggs which must have been a full-time job for one poor chicken but nothing helped whilst attempts to cure him were ongoing his endless hunger remained he would regularly sneak out of the hospital to fight dogs and other wild animals for the scraps left outside the butcher's shop he even turns to rather sinister vampiric habits by drinking the blood of patients undergoing bloodletting and on more than one occasion he was caught trying to eat corpses in the hospital morgue all this time baron percy stood by terrari resisting calls for him to be sent to an asylum steadfastly claiming his patient's ailment was entirely physical rather than mental and that the right treatment could cure him but then something happened that even percy couldn't explain away in 1794 a 14 month old toddler disappeared from the hospital there were no witnesses nor was there any evidence but the finger of blame was quickly and perhaps understandably pointed at the one patient already known to eat live animals and dead people after all was that next step really so much of a moral leap though he denied it terrari was chased from the hospital by an angry mob the tale of terrare then goes cold for no less than four years he left the army and disappeared as far as we know but suddenly out of the blue baron percy received a message from a hospital in versailles his old patient had turned up with not long to live and had requested the doctor's presence enthralled as he was by this medical marvel percy rushed to the hospital there terraria told him he believed he was dying from a golden fork he'd swallowed two years previously a good theory but percy was confident the advanced tuberculosis terraria was suffering from might have had something to do with it with percy by his side terraria passed away his death filled a room with noxious fumes leaving the doctor struggling to breathe once it was safe to re-enter they began their autopsy realizing they did not have lung to complete it soon after death terrare's body began to rapidly decompose still bravely pinching their noses the doctors cut him open hoping to understand what had caused his unique affliction terraria's intestines were rotten and dripping with puss his liver was a swollen decaying mush and his stomach was a massive ulcers that filled almost his entire abdominal cavity oh sorry if you're eating you should have probably paused that bit my bad they prised open his gigantic jaw which dreads so wide a cylinder four inches in diameter fit cleanly inside there they noted it was possible to see straight down terrare's wide throat which opens directly into his gut he was basically one giant intestine all the way down sadly this was as far as the autopsy went as the smell drove even percy from the room and terrare's corpse was disposed of before it became even more toxic so what caused terraria's condition it may have been malnourishment that drove both him and charles de mary to eat unfathomable quantities of unbelievable foodstuffs other theories include a brain injury or tumor that led to either a defective hypothalamus the region of the brain that controls the thyroid gland or damaged amygdalae the clusters of nuclei that control emotional responses malfunction from either of these may have caused hypothyroidism where the thyroid that regulates multiple bodily functions including metabolism goes absolutely ballistic symptoms of hyperthyroidism include the fine thinning hair that terrare sported as well as an excessive appetite rapid weight loss and sweating in essence it's the perfect recipe for creating a wreaking devourer of gargantuan proportions modern-day analysis of terraria's case also concludes he may have been host to an intestinal parasite like a hookworm if such a parasite was present in terraria's stomach it's conceivable that he could have eaten large amounts without gaining weight doctors haven't seen cases of polyphagia excessive appetite as severe as evil man's in the years since though these days it's likely the underlying conditions would have been treated far sooner we may never know exactly what caused the mary and terrari to eat everything in sight but we can say the world will likely never see a case like theirs again and for that owners of all you can eat buffets around the world can breathe a huge sigh of relief thanks for watching thanks again to trends for sponsoring today's video don't forget to check them out using the link in the description below

Channel: Thoughty2

Views: 1,005,305

Rating: 4.9376931 out of 5

Keywords: tarrare, eating, eat anything, record, history, amazing

Id: CVXsj1sz-Qk

Length: 24min 33sec (1473 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 04 2020