58 VORACITY. 



also formed several large pouches in succession, which appeared 

 like additional stomachs. Cabrol dissected a glutton of Toulouse, 

 and found the oesophagus terminating in an excessively large 

 cavity, and the intestines running, without a single convolution, 

 but with merely a gentle sigmoid flexure, to the anus. A large 

 pylorus, or a very depending position of it, have been found in other 

 cases. We thus learn the common causes of constitutional vora- 

 ciousness, and obtain an additional reason for referring hunger to 

 the want of distention of the stomach : a great quantity of food 

 is required to Jill these stomachs. If hunger were independent 

 of the distention of this organ, and connected solely with the 

 want of the system, an ordinary meal would suffice where the 

 stomach is very large, as the extraordinary quantity of food can- 

 not be demanded for nourishment, when food enough for support 

 is taken, hunger should cease. But hunger continues till the sto- 

 mach is filled, and the prodigious collection in the case of Tarare 

 was disposed of by abundant stools, sweating, and copious pul- 

 monary exhalation. 



The large capacity of the stomach is generally ascribable to 

 original conformation, but some account for it occasionally by 

 repeated over-distention and the deglutition of indigestible sub- 

 stances, an opinion rather improbable, when we reflect that cor- 

 poration gluttons, who give a very fair trial to the distensibility of 

 their idol, never acquire such appetites and capaciousness of sto- 

 mach as qualify them for a show. The power of deglutition may 

 be very much increased by practice. We have all seen the Indian 

 jugglers; and I frequently conversed with a poor man who had 

 swallowed nineteen large clasp-knives at different times, having 

 found in a drunken fit that he could get one down his throat for a 

 wager : yet in him the appetite and capacity of stomach were not 

 augmented. Knife and stone eaters are seen in all countries. 



Some great eaters are prodigies of strength; as Milo, who killed 



Several pieces of the knives are preserved in the Museum of Guy's Hospital, 

 and an account of the case may be found in the Med. Ckir. Trans, vol. xii. 



There is a collection of cases of extraordinary swallowing from Galen, Vesalius, 

 Pare, &c.,in Shenkius, Observationes Medicce, lib. iii. 



A polyphagus at the Jardin des Plantes, who once ate a lion which had died 

 there of some disease, and at last died himself of eating 8lbs. of new bread, most 

 originally conceived, being all for the belly, that animals might be classed accord- 

 ing to their excrement, and actually made a collection of such stores, upon which 

 he would descant most eloquently. Diet, des Sc. Med., Cas. Rares, p. 199. 



