Try Not to be Mortified When You Hear About the Legendary Appetite of Charles Domery

Try Not to be Mortified When You Hear About the Legendary Appetite of Charles Domery

Wyatt Redd - November 15, 2017

Have you ever been really hungry? So hungry that you feel like you would eat anything that someone put in front you of you? Most people have, of course. But have you ever been so hungry that you ate a cat? If not, then you’ve never been as hungry as Charles Domery. In fact, Domery may have had the most extreme appetite in history. His ravenous hunger was so extreme that he would eat anything from small animals to the amputated limb of a comrade. But just who was Charles Domery, and why was he so hungry?

Domery was born in Poland sometime around 1778. He had eight other brothers, all of whom had insatiable appetites. Perhaps because he couldn’t get enough to eat at home, Domery left at 13 to join the Prussian army. And during the War of the First Coalition, Domery found himself with the army in France near the city of Thionville. Deciding that the meager rations he was getting from the Prussians weren’t enough for him, Domery offered to surrender to the French in exchange for some food. The French commander accepted and handed Domery a melon. Domery immediately devoured it in one sitting, rind and all.

Try Not to be Mortified When You Hear About the Legendary Appetite of Charles Domery
An 18th-century Polish farm. Wikimedia Commons

Domery decided that the French had more food than the Prussians did, and thus they were the people he wanted to fight for. Domery joined the French army and began to surprise everyone with how much he could eat. He would often devour an entire day’s rations at once and then ask for more. Even after being issued double the rations of the average soldier, Domery spent almost all his pay on extra food. And when there was nothing else to eat, he would even consume 1.8 to 2.3 kg of grass a day.

Domery’s favorite food was a raw bull’s liver, and that seems to be how he liked all his meat. And he didn’t seem to care much where he got it. When camped near Paris, he took to catching cats. According to one French soldier who served with Domery, “In one year, [he] devoured 174 cats, dead or alive. Sometimes he killed them before eating, but when very hungry, did not wait to perform this humane office.” And as horrific as eating cats alive is, Domery’s ravenous hunger would soon lead him to eat something even worse when he was posted on board the Hoche, a French navy vessel.

Try Not to be Mortified When You Hear About the Legendary Appetite of Charles Domery
The Siege of Thionville, where Domery was present. Wikimedia Commons

The Hoche, with Domery on board, was sailing off the coast of Ireland when it was attacked by a squadron of the Royal Navy. As the British ships opened fire with their cannons, one of the French sailors on board the Hoche had his leg blown off. The limb flew across the deck, landing near Domery. Domery seized on the opportunity to eat and began biting chunks off of the leg until a horrified crewmember seized it from him and threw it into the water. Meanwhile, the Hoche was captured and taken back to England, where Domery soon became a medical oddity.

NEXT >>

Try Not to be Mortified When You Hear About the Legendary Appetite of Charles Domery
Royal Navy engaging the Hoche. The Irish Times

Like everyone who ever met Domery, his British captors were amazed by how much the man could eat. At the time, prisoners of war like Domery were provided with rations paid for by the country they were fighting for. Domery and his imprisoned comrades all received a standard ration consisting of 740 g of bread, 230 g of vegetables, and a small amount of butter or cheese. Unlike his fellow prisoners, Domery wolfed down his daily allowance and begged his captors for more. Gradually, the British increased Domery’s rations until he was getting 10 times as much food as anyone else.

Still, it wasn’t enough for Domery, and he once again took to eating cats or even any stray rodents he found in his cell. Domery’s bottomless stomach piqued the curiosity of his captors, and the commandant of the prison contacted the government board overseeing prisoners of war to tell them about Domery. The government took an interest in him as well and dispatched two doctors to run some tests. The doctors arrived at the prison and decided to spend an entire day feeding Domery different foods and testing his vital signs to see if they could figure out why he was so hungry.

At 4:00 AM, the doctors woke Domery up in his cell and offered him some meat. Specifically, they offered him 1.8 kg of raw cow’s udders. Domery was thrilled and gulped it down immediately. The astonished doctors returned at 9:30 AM when they gave Domery another 2.3 kg of raw beef, and noting that he often ate the prison candles, 453 g of tallow candles along with a bottle of wine to wash it down. Domery consumed all of it, as he did with an identical meal the doctors gave him that afternoon. While you’d expect any normal man with almost a kilogram of candles in his stomach to vomit or at least just feel sick, Domery apparently suffered no ill effects.

Clearly, Domery was not a normal man. With the medical mystery deepening, the doctors began taking careful notes of Domery’s activity throughout the course of a normal day. They found that Domery tended to lay down for bed at around 8:00 PM but spent the next two hours awake, sweating heavily. At around 10, he would fall asleep and the sweating would stop. At 1:00 AM every morning, Domery would wake up and immediately eat anything he could find. But if no food was available, he would smoke and then go back to sleep.

Try Not to be Mortified When You Hear About the Legendary Appetite of Charles Domery
Liverpool, where Domery was held. Chris Routledge

Domery would then awake again at around 5 or 6 and begin to sweat heavily. By the time Domery got out of bed to begin his daily routine of eating anything he could find, the sweating would stop, only to begin again whenever he ate. But aside from the sweating, there seemed to be nothing strange about Domery’s body. The doctors noted that in spite of his diet, his weight was perfectly normal, and he was healthy enough to complete long army marches. So, why exactly was Charles Domery so hungry?

<< Previous

NEXT >>

Try Not to be Mortified When You Hear About the Legendary Appetite of Charles Domery
Daily rations typical of the time. Jack of All Trades

Obviously, Domery was suffering from some sort of medical condition. The problem is that we aren’t sure what it was. It’s hard to diagnose someone who lived over two hundred years ago based on the sort of limited evidence we have for Domery’s condition, but some have suggested that he suffered from hyperthyroidism, a condition caused by the overproduction of thyroid hormone. The accounts of the doctors studying Domery might actually support this theory. After all, Domery sweat profusely, had trouble sleeping, and ate constantly but never seemed to gain weight, all symptoms of hyperthyroidism.

But there are also a number of problems with this theory. If Domery suffered from hyperthyroidism, then his story suggests that it was one of the extreme forms of the condition in history. There’s no modern case of hyperthyroidism doctors can point to where the patient went around eating grass, cats, and candles. In addition, Domery lacked many of the other symptoms of the condition like mood swings, anxiety, or a rapid heartbeat. This doesn’t disprove the theory that Domery was suffering from hyperthyroidism, but it does mean that if he was then it was a very strange case of the condition.

But there’s the possibility that Domery’s story was exaggerated. The only real sources available for his life come from the testimony of the soldiers and doctors in the prison where he was held. It’s possible that these stories were exaggerated or corrupted in retellings. It’s worth noting that Domery probably wasn’t even the man’s name. “Charles Domery” is distinctly English and would be a strange name for a Polish man to have. The fact that his name wasn’t recorded correctly means that other elements of his story may be embellished or mistranslated by the doctors as well.

But Domery almost certainly existed. The doctors examining him took careful notes of his habits and vital signs. It would be very unusual for two established medical professionals to completely invent the story and create meticulous notes to support it. And that means that Domery definitely had an abnormally large appetite. Why else would the doctors have been dispatched to examine him? If some parts of Domery’s story are exaggerated, then they probably came from the French soldiers who testified about his extreme behavior to his doctors. It’s easy to imagine some bitter French prisoners of war deciding to have some fun at the expense of their captors by telling them Domery used to eat grass.

Try Not to be Mortified When You Hear About the Legendary Appetite of Charles Domery
French soldiers of the period. Wikimedia Commons

If you discount the more fantastic elements of Domery’s story, the picture that emerges is closer to someone suffering from a normal medical condition that caused extreme hunger. Hyperthyroidism is a closer fit for this picture, and some have even proposed that the answer could be damage to Domery’s brain. Ultimately, Domery disappeared from the historical record after the visit from the doctors. So, we simply don’t know much more about him than they recorded. And that means that most likely, Domery and his legendary appetite will remain a mystery. But it’s certainly one that makes for a great story.

<< Previous

Advertisement