"Tarrare (c. 1772 to 1798), sometimes spelled Tarare, was a French showman and soldier, noted for his unusual appetite and eating habits. Able to eat vast amounts of meat, he was constantly hungry; his parents could not provide for him, and he was turned out of the family home as a teenager. He travelled France in the company of a band of thieves and prostitutes, before becoming the warm-up act to a travelling charlatan. In this act he would swallow corks, stones, live animals and a whole basketful of apples. He then took this act to Paris where he worked as a street performer. At the start of the War of the First Coalition, Tarrare joined the French Revolutionary Army, where even quadruple the standard military ration was unable to satisfy his large appetite. He would eat any available food from gutters and refuse heaps but his condition still deteriorated through hunger. He was hospitalised due to exhaustion and became the subject of a series of medical experiments to test his eating capacity, in which, among other things, he ate a meal intended for 15 people in a single sitting, ate live cats, snakes, lizards and puppies, and swallowed eels whole without chewing. Despite his unusual diet, he was underweight, and with the exception of his eating habits he showed no signs of mental illness other than what was described as an apathetic temperament."