Polyphagism.

ALL the polyphagists whose wonderful deeds are recorded in history, are superseded by the famous TARRARE, who was known to all Paris, and who died at Versailles about twenty years since, at the age of twenty-six years.

M. le Baron PERCY, who saw Tarrare, and who made some investigations respecting this singular personage, has given us the history of him, in a very curious memoir on Polyphagy: it is from this memoir that I shall extract the particulars I am about to relate of Tarrare. Tarrare has renewed amongst us the fable of ERISICHTON, who, according to OVID, devoured at one meal what might have sufficed for a whole city, or a whole nation.

-quod urbibus esse,

Quodque satis poterat populo.

At seventeen years of age, Tarrare weighed only one hunpounds, and was already able to eat, in twenty-four hours, a quarter of a bullock of that weight. Having left his parents when very young, (he was of the environs of Lyons) sometimes begging, sometimes stealing, to obtain subsistence, he attached himself to one of the shows on our boulevards, where we see exhibit themselves, in turn, Gill, Harlequin, and Punchinello. One time, on the stage, he defied the public to satiate him, and ate in a few minutes a panier-full of apples, furnished by one of the spectators; he swallowed flints, corks, and all that was presented to him. At the commencement of the war Tarrare entered into a batallion; he served all the young men in easy circumstances in the company, did all their jobs for them, and ate up the rations they left for him. Famine nevertheless gained upon him; he fell sick, and was taken to the military hospital at Soultz. On the day of his entry he received a quadruple allowance; he devoured the food refused by the other patients, and the scraps about the kitchen; but his hunger could not thus be appeased. He got into the apothecary's room, and ate there the poultices, and every thing he could seize. "Let a person imagine," says M. Percy, "all that domestic and wild animals, the most filthy and ravenous, are

capable of devouring, and they may form some idea of the appetite, as well as of the wants of Tarrare." He would eat dogs and cats. One day, in the presence of the chief physician, of the army, Dr. LORENCE, he seized by the neck and paws a large living cat, tore open its belly with his teeth, sucked its blood, and devoured it, leaving no part of it but the bare skeleton: half an hour afterwards he threw up the hairs of the cat, just as birds of prey, and other carnivorous animals, do. Tarrare liked the flesh of serpents; he managed them familiarly, and ate alive the largest snakes (couleuvres) without leaving any part of them. He swallowed a large eel alive without chewing it, but we thought we perceived him crush its head between his teeth. He ate, in a few instants, the dinner prepared for fifteen German labourers: this repast was composed of four bowls of curdled milk, and two enormous hard puddings. After this the belly of Tarrare, commonly lank and wrinkled, was distended like a balloon: he went away, and slept until the next day, and was not incommoded by it. M. COMVILLE, the surgeon-major of the hospital where Tarrare then was, made him swallow a wooden case, enclosing a sheet of white paper: he voided it the following day by the anus, and the paper was uninjured. The general-in-chief had him brought before him; and, after having devoured in his presence nearly thirty pounds of raw liver and lights, Tarrare again swallowed the wooden case, in which was placed a letter to a French officer, who was a prisoner to the enemy. Tarrare set out, was taken, flogged, imprisoned; voided the wooden case, which he had retained thirty hours, and had the address to swallow it again, to conceal the knowledge of its contents from the enemy. They tried to cure him of this insatiable hunger, by the use of acids, preparations of opium, and pills of tobacco; but nothing diminished his appetite and his gluttony. He went about the slaughter-houses and bye-places, to dispute with dogs and wolves the most disgusting aliments. The servants of the hospital surprised him drinking the blood of patients who had been bled, and in the dead-room devouring the bodies. A child fourteen months old disappeared suddenly; fearful suspicions fell on Tarrare; they drove him from the hospital. M. Percy lost sight of him for four years: at the VOL. X. No. 37.

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end of this time he saw Tarrare at the civil hospital at Versailles, where he was perishing in a tabid state. This disease had put a stop to his gluttonous appetite. He at length died in a state of consumption, and worn out by a purulent and fetid diarrhea, which announced a general suppuration of the viscera of the abdominal cavity. His body, as soon as he was dead, became a prey to an horrible corruption. The entrails were putrefied, confounded together, and immersed in pus: the liver was excessively large, void of consistence, and in a putrescent state; the gall-bladder was of considerable magnitude; the stomach, in a lax state, and, having ulcerated patches dispersed about it, covered almost the whole of the abdominal region. The stench of the body was so insupportable, that M. TESSIER, chief surgeon of the hospital, could not carry his investigation to any further extent.

Tarrare was of a middle-sized stature; his habit of body was weak and slender; he was not of a ferocious spirit; his look was timid; the little hair he had preserved, although very young, was very fair, and extremely fine. His cheeks were sallow, and furrowed by long and deep wrinkles: on distending them, he could hold in them as many as a dozen eggs or apples. His mouth was very large; he had hardly any lips; he had all his teeth, the molares were much worn away, and the colour of their enamel streaked like marble; the space between the jaws, when they were fully separated, measured about four inches: in this state, with the head inclined backwards, the mouth and œsophagus formed a rectilinear canal, into which a cylinder of a foot in circumference could be introduced without touching the palate. Tarrare, says M. Percy, was constantly covered with sweat, and from his body, always burning hot, a vapour arose, sensible to the sight, and still more so to the smell. He often stank to such a degree, that he could not be endured within the distance of twenty paces. He was subject to a flux from the bowels, and his dejections were fetid beyond all conception. When he had not eaten copiously within a short time, the skin of his belly would wrap almost around his body. When he was well satiated with food, the vapour from his body increased, his cheeks and his eyes became of a vivid red; a brutal somnolence, and a sort of hebi

tude came over him while he digested. He was in this state troubled with noisy belchings, and made, in moving his jaw, some motions like those of deglutition. M. Percy never saw in him any signs of rumination. The young Tarrare was almost devoid of force and of ideas. When he had eaten to a moderate extent, and his hunger only appeased, he was quick and active; he was heavy and sleepy only when he had eaten to excess.-London Medical and Physical Journal, September, 1819.

Hyposulphuric Acid.

A new acid has been recently discovered by MM. Gay Lussac and Welther, which they have called Hyposulphuric Acid, and an account of which was communicated to the Institute of France, on the 5th of April 1819. They obtained it by passing a current of sulphurous acid gas, over a solution of peroxide of manganese in water; then filtering and pouring into the liquor, a certain quantity of barytes, and causing a current of carbonic acid gas to pass over it, if there is an excess of this; then by pouring upon it sulphuric acid, the barytes is thrown down, and the new acid is obtained, which is dried under the receiver of an air-pump, by sulphuric acid. The greater number of the salts which it forms with earthy or metallic bases, are soluble, and crystallize. The hyposulphates of barytes and lime are inalterable in air; and the suberic acid and chlorine do not decompose the hyposulphate of barytes. This new acid is composed of two proportions of sulphur, and five of oxygen.-Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, June, 1819.

Raiz Preta, or Black Emetic Root.

The natives in the interior of Brazil use the infusion of the root of a plant, somewhat resembling ipecacuanha, with great effect, in the cure of dropsy, and in destroying the dangerous effects produced by the poison of serpents. When taken, it produces vomiting, and afterwards acts most powerfully on the urinary organs, occasioning for five or six days an extraordinary flow of urine. One dose is said to be sufficient for the cure of the bite of serpents, but many are required for the removal of dropsy.-Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, June, 1819.

Scientific Travellers in Brazil.

It is probably not generally known that at this moment scientific travellers are traversing all parts of Brazil, under the protection of the Portugueze, and at the expense of the Austrian, Bavarian and Tuscan Governments. On the part of Austria, the following are employed: 1. Professor Mikan for natural history in general, and botany in particular: 2. Dr. Pohl as mineralogist: 3. M. Natterer for Zoology: 4. M. Schott as gardener: 5. M. Socher as huntsman: 6. M. Ender as landscape-painter. 7. M. Buchberger as botanical painter, ' and M. Frick as natural history painter. On the part of Bavaria, 1. Dr. Spix as zoologist, and 2. Professor Martinus as botanist. On the part of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Dr. Radi as Naturalist.-Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, June, 1819.

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

At an election of officers of the Society, held at their Hall on the 7th January, 1820, the following persons were chosen. President-Robert Patterson.

Vice Presidents-William Tilghman.-Peter S. Duponceau.-Zaccheus Collins.

Secretaries Thomas C. James.-R. M. Patterson.-Robert Walsh, Jr.-George Ord.

Counsellors for three years-James Gibson.-Nathaniel Chapman.-Robert Hare.-William Hembel.

Curators-Joseph Cloud.-Thomas T. Hewson.-Reuben

Haines.

Treasurer-John Vaughan.

National Pharmacopoeia.

The General Convention, for the formation of a National Pharmacopoeia, met at the City of Washington, January 1st,

1820.