He ate entire baskets of apples in minutes. He devoured live animals, corks, stones, and raw flesh. He was suspected of cannibalism, espionage, and even devouring a toddler.
This isn’t urban legend. This is the true story of Tarrare, an 18th-century Frenchman whose insatiable hunger baffled doctors, terrified those around him, and raised questions that science still can’t answer.
Was he a medical anomaly—or something worse?
A Hunger Without End
Tarrare was born near Lyon, France, around 1772. From a young age, it was clear something was wrong. He could eat his body weight in meat every day, yet remained incredibly thin. He sweated constantly, had sunken eyes, and gave off a putrid odor so foul that even experienced physicians gagged in his presence.
His mouth was massive. His stomach sagged when empty and ballooned grotesquely after meals. His body steamed. His breath was unbearable.
He wasn’t just a glutton. He was a phenomenon—and a deeply disturbing one.
By his teens, he had been kicked out of his family home. They simply couldn’t afford to feed him. He wandered France as part of traveling shows, eating live animals for entertainment—snakes, eels, and even entire cats.
Audiences were horrified.
Tarrare didn’t care.
He needed to eat.
The Military Recruit
During the War of the First Coalition, Tarrare joined the French army. But his appetite outpaced his rations. He scavenged, stole, and begged from other soldiers.
He was eventually hospitalized for exhaustion and starvation, where military doctors at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris began experimenting on him. They gave him quadruple rations. He still begged for more.
They watched, stunned, as he:
- Swallowed an entire eel without chewing
- Consumed raw meat and organs
- Ate live cats and puppies
- Drank blood by the liter
He even drank the blood of other patients, if they weren’t watched carefully.
That’s when things got darker.
A Living Courier
Because Tarrare could swallow anything, military officials tried turning him into a human courier—slipping secret documents into wax-sealed capsules that he swallowed and later excreted.
He was sent behind enemy lines to deliver messages in Prussia. But he was quickly caught, beaten, and imprisoned. When interrogated, he confessed everything.
Luckily, the Prussians believed he was insane.
They released him.
But Tarrare never recovered.
After returning to France, his behavior worsened.
Alleged Cannibalism
Back in the hospital, Tarrare’s hunger became unmanageable. He rummaged through medical waste, fought stray dogs for scraps, and was caught drinking from patients’ blood bags.
Then came the unthinkable: a 14-month-old child disappeared from the hospital.
Many believed Tarrare was the culprit. The staff had had enough. He was cast out, condemned to wander again.
He lived out his final years in destitution and shame, eventually dying of tuberculosis in 1798.
Even in death, he was grotesque—his corpse decomposed with unusual speed, and his organs were described as “rotting from within.”
What Was He?
Modern doctors have speculated Tarrare may have suffered from:
- Hyperthyroidism
- Polyphagia (extreme hunger disorder)
- Brain damage affecting satiety
- A parasitic infection
But none of these fully explain the total breakdown of human behavior he exhibited.
Was he a man with a disease—or a mind consumed by something darker?
Tarrare wasn’t a monster in a fairy tale. He lived, devoured, and died in the real world. His life forces us to confront uncomfortable questions:
What happens when the body consumes without end?
When hunger becomes horror?
When the line between survival and savagery disappears?
His case remains one of the most disturbing in medical history.
And one of the most forgotten.
Want to explore the shadows even deeper?
For more chilling cases like this, visit SinisterArchive.com—where the legends are real.
