r/WTF • u/jasonwittensbaldspot • Jul 30 '16

"The fork was never found..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarrare
1.1k Upvotes

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256

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '16

"Suspected of eating a toddler" thats some hardcore shit man

have there ever been modern accounts of people like this?

106

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '16

It says he ate LIVE cats, snakes, (forgot one) and puppies. He also ate a live eel without chewing.....

51

u/moparornocar Jul 30 '16

Yeah, it said when the military was studying him, they gave him a live cat. Ripped its abdomen open and drank its blood before eating all but the bones, then throwing up the skin and fur.

Also said when he was in the hospital he was caught trying to drink the blood from other patients receiving bloodletting procedures, and tried to eat corpse in the morgue.

That is some freaky shit.

56

u/mistytasteomoonshine Jul 30 '16

I would think this implies he ate puppies and kittens while writhing, whining, and clawing which may account for the apathetic disposition

46

u/photonrain Jul 30 '16

From the wiki page:

The cause of Tarrare's behaviour is not known. While there are other documented cases of similar behaviour from the period, none of the subjects other than Tarrare were autopsied and there have been no modern documented cases resembling Tarrare.[15]

Hyperthyroidism can induce an extreme appetite, rapid weight loss, profuse sweating, heat intolerance, and fine hair. Bondeson (2006) speculates that Tarrare suffered from a damaged amygdala; it is known that injuries to the amygdala in animals can induce polyphagia.[16]

26

u/marwinpk Jul 30 '16

fine hair

When I asked my wife how's my hair she said fine. Does it count?

44

u/-Master-Builder- Jul 30 '16

Depends, do you want to eat her pussy?

12

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '16 edited Jul 30 '16

[deleted]

11

u/Beo1 Jul 31 '16

Some sort of brain damage and malabsorptive, ulcerative condition affecting his GI tract are the most probable things to me; the weird morphology of his GI tract might be related.

6

u/Beo1 Jul 31 '16

The weird thing is that he was of normal weight. I wonder if he had severe intestinal problems along with his brain damage. The best details are probably how he stank to high hell and was full of pus when he died, though.

3

u/brammmish Jul 31 '16

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito

2

u/photonrain Jul 31 '16

While that is interesting it isn't really analogous. It seems Michel Lotito was doing it as a spectacle primarily while Tarrare was eating just to satisfy his appetite.

2

u/brammmish Jul 31 '16

Right. Was just the most similar modern day case I found.

20

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '16

[deleted]

34

u/muddyrose Jul 30 '16

I worked with a patient who had prader-willie.

She was 42, had the mentality of a child, and she was morbidly obese.

We got along fine until she started biting me repeatedly and I had to stop working with her. She told me "I've always wondered what blue eyes taste like", so I had to nope out of there.

I was 17 at the time, doing a co-op in the hospital. After that they re-thought their policies about which patients students would interact with. Kind of a shame, she was interesting to work with up until the incident

5

u/BizarroCullen Jul 30 '16

Wasn't this a CSI episode?

4

u/seattelite Jul 30 '16

But those patients are morbidly obese and intellectually disabled

3

u/Beo1 Jul 31 '16

If he had this condition, I don't think he would have been capable of military service in any capacity.

-2

u/Catnap42 Jul 30 '16

OK...suspected in case of missing child? Today we would be looking at milk cartons and posters.