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Jacques de Falaise
French quarryman who became famous for his ingestion skills / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jacques de Falaise (stage name of Jacques Simon; 1754–1825) was a French quarryman who became famous in the early 19th century for his ingestion skills.
Jacques de Falaise | |
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![]() Le poliphage Jacques de Falaise chez M. Comte, anonymous engraving from 1819. Jacques de Falaise, seated at a table, holds a live mouse in one hand. In front of him, a bird in a cage, an eel, a crayfish, a flower, nuts, playing cards and a sword. | |
Born | Jacques Simon 1754 |
Died | (1825-03-30)March 30, 1825 |
Nationality | French |
Occupation(s) | Quarryman, street performer |
Known for | Polyphagia[note 1] |
First hired by conjurer Louis Comte at his Paris theater in 1816, he became famous for a few years for his "polyphagic experiments", during which he ingested nuts, pipes, unshelled hard-boiled eggs, flowers with their stems, watches, and live animals such as mice, sparrows, eels, and crayfish. Forced to stop his exploits by several bouts of gastroenteritis, he committed suicide in 1825. His autopsy was the subject of a memoir widely circulated in Europe, which concluded that Jacques de Falaise was not endowed with exceptional digestive organs, and that he indulged in his exercises out of a desire to shine, rather than a depraved appetite. He is considered the "ancestor" of circus "merycists".