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In previous episodes, we've mentioned men
like Nicholas Wood, the great Eater of

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Kent, Ping Body, the New
York Yankees baseball player who beaten Ostrich in

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a spaghetti eating competition, and recently
we even spoke about William McKenna, the

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man who could eat all sorts of
glass and metals. Now there are hundreds

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more stories, I'm sure of men
and women with equally impressive or horrific eating

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habits, depending on your point of
view. But today we'll be focusing on

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one of history's most notorious. His
abilities defy traditional human limits and in fact

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defy traditional human decency as well.
His unquenchable appetite and insatiable hunger brought him

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global acclaim and praise, but it
also ultimately proved to beat his downfall.

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Today we'll be diving into the story
of Charles Domeri, a Polish born soldier

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who tried to eat the whole world. These are the bizarre but true stories

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from history and in some way involved
food. I'm Nick Charlie Key, and

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this is the fantastic history of food. Charles Domri was born in seventeen seventy

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eight to a Polish family as one
of nine boys. Now, according to

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most accounts, all of these boys
had larger than normal appetites, and I

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feel incredibly sorry for their poor parents, who must have gone through roughly twenty

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loads of bread on a slow week. But even so, Charles's appetite stood

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out amongst his brethren. Despite his
voracious eating habits, he grew up a

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healthy child with an average frame,
although he did grow up to be around

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six foot three inches tall at the
age of just thirteen, although in the

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seventeen hundreds this was basically middle aged. Charles decided that the time was right

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to join the Prussian Army. He
expected to see some battle, some adventure,

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and to make a name for himself
defending his country. What he didn't

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expect, however, were the meager
food rations that the Prussian army handed out

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to their soldiers Each day. He
would complain loudly to his commanding officers that

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there was just not enough food and
he was still hungry. Eventually, in

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an effort to shut him up,
the army doubled his proportions, and yet

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still this was not enough to satisfy
Charles's hunger. So Charles did the only

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thing he could think of. In
the situation, he defected to the French

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army to see if they would be
prepared to feed him more now. Upon

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his arrival to the French lines,
he was given a whole fresh melon to

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eat, which he immediately devoured,
not even stopping at the rind, but

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forcing that down his throat as well. The French army matched his Prussian counterparts

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in affording him double rations, and
his fellow soldiers, who would usually grumble

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at this form of special treatment,
simply watched on in amazement as domer ate

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whatever he could get his hands on. When inevitably the French daily ration still

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proved too meager to fill his belly, he began spending every single cent of

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his military pay to buy himself more
food, and would greedily scoop up his

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fellow soldiers leftovers onto his own plate
before devouring those as well. And yet

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it was still not enough. His
commanding officers watched on in amazement and simply

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made notes of his gluttonous behavior,
without having any real reason to stop him.

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It's recorded in one of these journals
that in the span of just one

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year, Charles Domeri is said to
have eaten one hundred and seventy four cats

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that he caught while on duty.
Now, the disturbing part of all of

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this is that, by some accounts, he was so hungry sometimes he didn't

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even wait to kill them first before
he began feasting on them, and that's

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some pretty gruesome stuff. In light
of this, it's probably worth noting that

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when these insatiable hunger urges first appeared, he was sent to be evaluated by

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some form of early psychiatrist, who, for all intents and purposes, found

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nothing wrong with him, either physically
or mentally, and just described him as

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being a man of average intelligence with
no outward signs of mental illness. But

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this assessment didn't always seem to correlate
well with his actions. Asign from the

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raw cat fiasco, it was also
not uncommon for Domery to consume between four

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and five pounds of grass each day
simply to try and fill his stomach and

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make the hunger pang subside for just
a while, surprisingly, or perhaps not

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surprisingly after what we've just heard earlier. As much as he loved food and

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meat in particular, cooked or roasted
meat would more often than not make him

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sick to his stomach, and so
his preferred method was to eat his meat

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entirely raw. Now I know you're
thinking what could possibly top the cat story

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from earlier, but allow me to
yet again one up it by sharing an

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incident that happened aboard a French military
ship while in the heat of battle.

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The soldiers aboard the vessel were engaged
in a sea battle with another ship,

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and as was the custom of the
day, cannon balls zipped through the air

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as they were fired from ship to
ship. Anyone unlucky enough to be in

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the way of a giant metal ball
hurtling through the air at a fairly rapid

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pace was not going to be in
for a very good time, and so

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sailors were often hit full on by
these cannonballs and found themselves heartily shifting off

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what remained of their mortal coils.
Other times, sailors were simply sideswiped by

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the hurtling metal objects, and often
when this happened, it would simply and

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neatly remove from their bodies whichever limb
had been unlucky enough to have been in

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the way. And so it was
on this fateful day that a soldier standing

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alongside Charles Domery had their leg detached
from their body as a cannon ball was

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gone by. In that moment,
something in Charles's eyes lit up, just

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like in the cartoons when their hunger
pangs start to turn their friends into chicken,

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drumsticks or some other delicious food.
The soldier's leg was still rolling around

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on the deck, and before it
could come to rest, Charles had grabbed

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it and began gnawing on it like
a Viking wood on a roasted leg of

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lamb. The other soldiers around him
were horrified at what they saw, and

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once the initial shock had worn off, rushed towards him, grabbing the leg

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out of his mouth and throwing it
overboard before Charles could snatch it back again.

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Charles could then be heard sulkily saying
what a waste as he trudged below

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decks, presumably to raid the ship's
stores. Not long after this happened,

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and during the course of yet another
of these battles, Charles was captured by

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the British Army in seventeen ninety eight. It's hilarious to me to think that

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at that very moment they had no
idea what they were getting themselves in for.

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At the time of his capture,
the average daily ration for a wartime

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prisoner was one loaf of bread,
one cup of vegetables, and a small

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block of cheese. Naturally, this
just wouldn't do for our Charles and his

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captors soon became aware that they had
somewhat of a freak of nature on their

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hands. Rather than growing flustered by
his dietary requirements, they instead saw it

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as somewhat of a game, humorous
reprieve from an otherwise mundane military existence.

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Soon they too agreed to double his
rations, but quickly realized that this was

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mere child's play for Domri and slowly, but surely, they began increasing his

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allotted rations, until at one point
he was devouring in just one sitting the

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entire daily rations of ten other men. When even this proved to be insufficient

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for Charles, he began literally swallowing
and or eating anything that wouldn't immediately kill

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or poison him. He would snatch
away other prisoners medications and swallow them,

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or would chew and eat entire candles
meant to light the cells at night.

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And obviously, he went back to
his old ways by not only capturing and

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eating all of the rats he could
get his hands on raw, mind you,

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but he even managed to capture the
prison cat and gobbled that poor creature

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up too. Prison doctors watched him
with fascination and made notes of his health

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for as long as he was under
their care. He was noted as sweating

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profusely each night while he slept,
but this would immediately stop as soon as

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he woke up and ate something.
A year after his capture, a word

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of his escapades spread throughout the British
High Command, and in seventeen ninety nine

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he was given over to the Royal
Navy for a more in depth study of

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his condition. It was decided that
they would do an experiment on him to

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test and see if he had any
limits whatsoever to how much he could eat

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in a day, And so on
the seventeenth of September seventeen ninety nine,

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a physician by the name of doctor
J. Johnston began the experiment. He

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had made sure to include a number
of other respectable witnesses on the day so

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as to validate whatever his findings were, as he feared no one would believe

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him if what everyone had said about
Charles was true. That morning, at

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four a m. Sharp, Charles
was woken up and fed four pounds of

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raw cow's udders. He made light
work of that meal and promptly went back

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to sleep again. At nine thirty
a m. He was awoken once again

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and fed the following firstly a meal
of five pounds of raw beef, followed

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up by twelve candles weighing one pound
that were made from the rendered fat of

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cows, as well as a bottle
of porter Ale, a rather heavy bodied

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beer. Onlookers were astonished to see
that before even one full hour had elapsed,

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his plate and mug were empty.
One o'clock rolled around, and yet

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more was laid out on the table
before him. This meal was almost identical

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to the last, and that they
had gained fed him five pounds of beef

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and twelve more tallow candles, but
followed it up this time with three bottles

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of porter Ale instead of just the
one. An hour later and Domeri was

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observed to be in good spirits,
chatting with a few friends as he slowly

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made his way through the lass of
the candles, with a good chunk of

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the meat still to go. At
a quarter past sixth that evening, he

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had finally finished everything that was on
his plate and finally declared that he could

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eat no more, asking kindly if
he could go in lie down in his

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cell. Doctor Johnston was astounded,
but for a variety of reasons. Firstly,

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it was insane to think that this
man had consumed almost fifteen pounds of

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food in one day, without even
counting the beers. But a number of

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his other observations shocked him as well. Not once did Charles need to use

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the bathroom that entire day, and
whilst monitoring him, found that his heart

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rate remained normal throughout even that night, when one should have been too full

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to even move. Domeri was observed
to be dancing around his cell while smoking

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a pipe, and even finished the
night off with yet another porter ale before

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retiring to bed. I think it's
safe to say that this may very well

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have been the best day of his
life. Eventually, as time wore on,

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Charles Domrie and his insatiable hunger slowly
faded from the public consciousness, and

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his later life and ultimately his death
are unknown or at least undocumented. Modern

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doctors have speculated that he may have
been suffered from some form of glandular disorder,

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but without being able to test the
man directly, it will forever be

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a guessing game as to what led
a man to such hunger that he would

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devour live cats, pounds of grass, and even a fellow sailor's leg,

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just to make the pain in his
stomach go away, knowing that soon it

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would start all over again. This
show is made entirely by me, Nick

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Charlie Key, with our theme music
having been made by the enigma that is

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the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. If you'd
like to support the show, the simplest

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way to do that is over on
our Patreon account. There's just one option,

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so for just two bucks a month, you'll help me keep producing this

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show, and in return, you'll
get your name forever etched onto our supporter's

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Wall of Fame over on our website, and then maybe listen out for your

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name in an upcoming episode. So
until next time, bon appetite,