Tarrare the Insatiable: The Man Who Ate Everything
Date: 1772–1798
Location: France, late 18th century
A Hunger Beyond Understanding
Most of us know hunger as a passing ache. A rumble in the stomach. A need easily answered.
But for Tarrare, it was something else—a bottomless craving that ruled his life, his body, and ultimately, his sanity.
Born near Lyon, France, Tarrare’s appetite defied all reason. As a child, he could eat his weight in food daily. As a teen, he was forced out of his home because his family could no longer afford to feed him.
What began as curiosity soon turned into horror.
A Traveling Curiosity
In his youth, Tarrare became a sideshow act, roaming from town to town in France, swallowing corks, live animals, stones—even entire baskets of apples in one sitting.
His jaw stretched like leather, and he could open his mouth wide enough to swallow a cat whole. He often did.
Audiences were fascinated—and sickened.
He weighed just over 100 pounds. His skin hung in folds. His belly, when not full, was loose and sagging like an empty sack. But when fed, it stretched grotesquely to accommodate whatever he consumed.
Military Experimentation
During the French Revolutionary Wars, Tarrare joined the army—but military rations were not enough. He scavenged through refuse piles. He drank the blood of other soldiers. He was caught attempting to eat corpses in the morgue.
Horrified, the French military sent him to doctors, who ran experiments. They fed him live eels, snakes, lizards, and raw meat to test his limits.
In one experiment, they hid a document inside a wooden box, fed it to him, and retrieved it after it passed through his body. The idea? Use him as a human courier for smuggling secret messages across enemy lines.
It actually worked.
But when Tarrare was captured by the Prussians, he broke down and confessed. The mission failed. The idea was abandoned.
From Curiosity to Tragedy
Tarrare’s appetite grew darker. He was eventually confined to a hospital, but his condition spiraled into despair. Nurses claimed he would sneak out at night to drink the blood of other patients. Some even feared he had eaten a missing child.
There was no proof. But the suspicion never left him.
He died young, in 1798, of what doctors described as "tuberculosis." During the autopsy, they discovered his esophagus was abnormally wide, his stomach lined all the way to his pelvis, and his body riddled with infection.
Conclusion: A Hunger That Couldn’t Be Satisfied
Tarrare’s life is difficult to categorize. He was not a villain. Not a monster. But not simply a man either. He was a mystery of flesh and appetite, someone whose body betrayed him in the most horrific way imaginable.
His story isn't just about hunger.
It’s about what happens when the body becomes alien to itself.
When science can’t explain—and society won’t accept.
He was a man who could eat anything.
But no one knew how to feed his soul.
Key Characters:
- Tarrare – The central figure, an 18th-century Frenchman with an insatiable appetite
- French doctors – Experimented on him to understand his unique condition
- French military officials – Used him as a failed espionage courier
- Civilians and hospital staff – Witnessed and feared his dark transformation
References:
- Medical History of Tarrare, Dr. Pierre-François Percy
- Royal Society of Medicine Archives
- Contemporary accounts from military doctors and hospital staff
Reviewed by Sagar B
on
June 22, 2025
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