WILMINGTON – From a distance, Tarrare appeared to be a normal 17-year-old boy, living in Paris in the late 1700s.
He was of average height and weighed a trim 100 pounds but that was where his “normalcy” stopped.
Underneath a soft, thin layer of hair, and two dark sunken eyes, Tarrare’s cheeks hung loosely in wrinkled clumps.
They could expand wide enough to hold a dozen eggs with ease.
His unusually large mouth contained a cavern of deeply stained (and well worn down) teeth.
On the occasions that he smiled, a Cheshire cat like-grin would take up most of his face and even his lips were said to become almost invisible.
But Tarrare was not typically in a smiling mood.
He had a terrible, insatiable appetite that would ultimately lead to his death in his mid-twenties.
As a boy, Tarrare had such an appetite that his family could not sustain the amount of food needed to keep him comfortable and kicked him out of the house as a necessity.
Tarrare would roam the streets, eating from dumpsters and sneaking into houses to steal food.
He was especially fond of the offal (leftover parts of the animal deemed inedible) thrown out by butcher shops but typically had to compete with stray dogs and rodents to get it.
He eventually began performing small tasks or favors in exchange for as much food as he could get his hands on.
And he needed a lot.
Tarrare was known to be able to eat his body weight in beef within a single day.
News of the boy with the amazing appetite spread quickly and people began to bring Tarrare scraps in exchange for a performance of his incredible eating abilities.
So Tarrare ate.
He ate corks, stones, silverware, baskets of apples, watches, chains, gallons of milk, and hundreds of eggs.
Unsatisfied, he began to capture and eat live dogs, cats and chickens.
He would swallow live eels whole.
His life revolved around his eating habits and he eventually sought treatment at a local hospital in desperate search for a cure.
Doctors found no mental illness in Tarrare and tried various strategies to cure his never-ending appetite.
Nothing worked.
And the doctors could not control his diet even while under their supervision.
He was routinely caught stealing food from other patients and even eating and drinking hospital supplies including various fluids and creams.
He was caught stealing and eating blood that had been collected from patients.
A lock had to be put on the door to the morgue after he was caught using it as a personal buffet.
Eventually, a toddler went missing, and Tarrare, being the prime suspect, fled the facility.
He wandered the countryside for almost 4 years before showing up, sickly and exhausted, at a hospital in Versailles.
He complained of stomach pangs, believing that a golden fork he had swallowed some years before had become lodged inside of him and was the source of his poor health.
Unfortunately, he also exhibited signs of tuberculosis and eventually succumbed to a combination of the disease and gastrointestinal issues.
An autopsy was performed and Tarrare was found to have enormous internal organs, with his ulcer-laden stomach being 3-4 sizes larger than the norm.
Doctors also remarked on the “broad canal” of an esophagus that ran from his mouth to his balloon like stomach, which accounted for Tarrare’s ability to swallow apples, one after another.
Perhaps Tarrare would have fared better had he been born into today’s society of hotdog eating contests and supersized fast food.
It would still be wise, however, to keep your pets on a short leash if Tarrare was to happen to wander into your town, hungry and looking for a quick meal.
