Further reading for Polyphagia
The Two-headed Boy, and Other Medical Marvels by Jan Bondeson
Polyphagia, Greek for Eating Many or Devouring, is the clinical term for an eating disorder stemming from many physical and psychological disorders. Broadly, it indicates an individual’s compulsive desire to overeat but in the context of this Last Podcast episode, the emphasis is placed on people driven to eat substances that either deliver no nutrition, whatsoever, or are profoundly disgusting.
For evidence, the episode presents Charles Domery, a Prussian soldier who was said to have defected to the French army in order to take advantage of greater quantities of rations but while a captive of the British army, he ate whatever the prison guards put in front of him for laughs. Among the many strange things eaten, Domery was said to have eat 174 whole cats in a single year, which is a staggering amount of cats, and an entire meal meant for 15 people down to the candles on the table.
Also, featured in the episode is a French soldier known to history only as Tarare, who would prowl the streets of Paris by night, collecting the most vile and diseased meats left in gutters. When one of the men in the unit was struck by cannon fire, and his leg was suddelny separated from his body, Tarare was said to have lunged for the limb and and began eating it in front of everyone around him. Later in life, he was known to have foraged through medical waste and prowled mortuaries in order to parts of corpses.
Episode: 437
