#Pica syndrome first discover crack

There, even being granted quadruple rations failed to satiate his hunger. Despite all of his scrounging, Tarrare succumbed to exhaustion and was admitted to a military hospital under the care of Dr.

Unable to subsist off of military rations alone, Tarrare began doing odd jobs around the base for other soldiers in exchange for their rations and, when that proved to be insufficient, foraged for food scraps in dunghills. Barely twenty years old, this peculiar patient proved to be quite extraordinary. Pierre-François Percy first made the acquaintance of the inexplicable Tarrare, now a soldier for the French Revolutionary Army. It was during the French War of the First Coalition when respected military surgeon Dr. Pierre-François Percy, Mémoire sur la polyphagie. “Let a person imagine all that domestic or wild animals, the most filthy and ravenous, are capable of devouring, and they may form some idea of the appetite, as well as the wants of Tarrare.”-Dr. The surgeon agreed, but only under the condition that he be allowed to cut Tarrare open to retrieve it. After being treated with laxatives, a grateful Tarrare offered to demonstrate his talents by eating the surgeon’s pocket watch. Tarrare once collapsed mid-performance with what was later discovered to be an intestinal obstruction, requiring his audience to carry him to the nearby Hôtel-Dieu hospital. Sadly, this boundless craving forced him out of his family’s home as a teenager, as they could no longer afford to feed him.Īfter several years of touring the country as a vagabond begging for food, for a time Tarrare became the opener for a snake-oil peddling mountebank before taking off to Paris to perform as a solo act. As the legend goes, a young Tarrare was capable of eating his own bodyweight in cow meat within a 24-hour period. Born in the rural countryside surrounding the epicenter of the booming silk-weaving trade in Lyon, France in approximately 1772, his rapacious appetite was readily apparent from an early age. Prior to life as a successful street performer, the individual is known only by his stage name, Tarrare, lived in destitution as part of a traveling caravan of criminal misfits. His hair was fair and soft, while his cheeks, when not engaged at capacity-allegedly able to hold so much as a dozen eggs-were wrinkled and hung slack to create premature jowls. When full, it was inflated like a balloon-not unlike a pregnant woman in her final trimester. When empty, his stomach was loosely distended to the point that he could wrap it around his waist as if it were a belt made of his own, still-attached flesh. Despite all of his daily intake, he never seemed to keep any of the weight on. Like most modern competitive binge-eaters, Tarrare was diminutive in stature, weighing no more than one hundred pounds-prior to eating, at least. With a large, lip-less mouth stretched wide beyond human regularity and filled with stained teeth, he ate corks, stones, entire baskets of apples-one at a time in quick succession-and live animals (his favorite was snake) for the morbid amusement of repulsed onlookers that were challenged to satiate his seemingly interminable appetite. Be warned, this is not for the weak of heart-but if you think you can stomach it, then strap in! The Sad, Voraciously Unquenchable Existence of Tarrare

#Pica syndrome first discover crack

The crack team at was able to speak with a doctor who specializes in science-based nutrition in search of a possible diagnosis, but first, let’s chew the fat on the life of this legendary cannibal and his strange circumstances of existence. He was once even suspected of kidnapping and devouring a toddler. According to contemporary accounts and existent medical records, his quenchless appetite continued growing to the point that his legendarily gluttonous gorging caused this ravenous Frenchman to ingest live animals and maraud morgues for sustenance. However, things would soon take a sinister turn so far as this overzealous diner was concerned. Earlier in life, his dietary needs started out robustly, but were otherwise innocuous. The walking manifestation of one of the seven deadly sins prowled the cobbled streets of 18th-century Paris, seeking only to indulge his endless hunger.