Tarrare: The 18th-Century French Soldier Who Could Eat Anything

Tarrare (c. 1772–1798) was a French soldier and showman whose pathological hunger made him one of the most extraordinary medical cases in history. Despite reportedly eating the equivalent of a quarter of a cow per day, he remained thin and chronically starving. Physicians at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris studied him intensively, yet his condition was never diagnosed. He died at around age 26, almost certainly from tuberculosis, leaving behind a case file that still puzzles doctors today.

What Was Wrong With Tarrare? The Medical Mystery Explained

Tarrare was born around 1772 near Lyon, France. By his teenage years his appetite had grown so extreme that his family could no longer afford to feed him, and he was turned out onto the streets. He survived by joining travelling charlatans and street performers, eating corks, stones, live animals, and entire meals intended for multiple people as a sideshow act. Physically, he was deeply abnormal: his cheeks could be stretched to reveal rows of teeth, his stomach could reportedly expand to an enormous size after eating, his body temperature was unusually high, and he exuded a powerful, offensive odour. Physicians who examined him suspected a dysfunction of the hypothalamus — the brain region governing hunger — or a severe hormonal imbalance, possibly involving the thyroid gland. Modern clinicians have suggested conditions including hyperthyroidism or a hypothalamic lesion, but no definitive retrospective diagnosis has been established.

How Did Tarrare Become a French Army Spy?

Tarrare enlisted in the French Revolutionary Army around 1788–1792, but his appetite quickly became a logistical problem: even quadruple rations left him ravenous. He was hospitalised after collapsing from hunger and came under the care of Dr. Pierre-François Percy at a military hospital. Percy and other physicians conducted experiments, feeding Tarrare enormous quantities of food and observing him swallow live cats, snakes, lizards, and eels whole. General Alexandre de Beauharnais saw a military application in his ability to swallow objects and pass them undetected. In 1793, Tarrare was tasked with smuggling a secret document inside his stomach to Colonel Mack, a prisoner of war held by Prussian forces near Neustadt. He swallowed a wooden box containing the dispatch, crossed enemy lines, was captured, subjected to repeated purges, and the document recovered. The mission failed entirely, and Tarrare was flogged before being released.

What Happened to Tarrare in His Final Years?

After the failed spy mission, Tarrare begged doctors to cure him, desperate to escape his compulsion. He was given laudanum, tobacco pills, wine vinegar, and soft-boiled eggs — none of which reduced his hunger. He was expelled from the hospital in 1794 after being caught drinking blood from patients undergoing bloodletting and was suspected of eating a 14-month-old infant who disappeared from the ward — a charge never proven but one that resulted in his permanent removal. He disappeared from official records for four years. In 1798, a physician at Versailles identified him as terminally ill with tuberculosis. He died shortly after, and the post-mortem revealed a massively dilated oesophagus and stomach, an enlarged liver and gallbladder, and ulcers throughout his gastrointestinal tract — physical evidence consistent with a lifetime of pathological overeating.