GREAT EATERS AND DRINKERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 61, 12 March 1921, Page 17

GREAT EATERS AND DRINKERS.

There is a story of a jockey who,' after the race for which he had been' long starving •himself was run, went to an hotel and ate a. leg cf mutton, cays a medical correspondent of the "Daily, Mail." When the waiter asked if hewoui.l like some sweets or cheese he replied. "No. I never C-t sweets. B-.it, 't yen har.? another leg of mutt.m I t.hink I co.u-.l manage it." This seems almost credible in view of the records to be found of great eater.*.; and drinkers. In tin; Transactions of the Royal Socictv mention is. mr.do of a l.ov, ten; years'old. who consumed -73'h of food and drink n a -,wek. and another boy.: suffering from diabetes, who ate 394'.bi of food in six days: -o great was his! hunger thai when refuse 1 food lie' gnawed the llesh eff his .wu bones. j Pr. Burroughs records in the > ame' p-.-bli.-ation t.-c ca.-c . f a farm labourer! of Stanton, near I'ury. whom he saw eating a whole 1 -g : f veal at a meal. There was a woman patient in St. Parthelomew's llosp'tal in ]S7o whose ■ ia : ly ration con-si-ted of liirre quartern loaves, three pounds of meat, and a very large quantity of vegetables. Another extraordinary feeler was a man who ate all the time for 1.1 out of the 24 hours and still felt hungry. These amazing people are paralleled by drinkers of enormous quantities of liquids. It is told of a doctor, who w_very fond of port, that once a came to h'm complaining of a terrible thirst. "What will you give mc for it?" the patient. The doctor consulted his bank--b-iok and replied. "I will give you £130 10/7, and that is all I have in the world."' He would envy the man of whom the great French physician Trousseau records that he would drink 50 p'nts of wine in a day besides a daily consump-

tion of 21 pints of strong brandy. Water, however, is the beverage of the great drinkers. The "-Medical Times," 187 S. reports the case of a child three years old who drank two pailfuls of water every day. At the age of 21 she married a poor cobber. and then her allowance was four pailful.?. As water cost a penny a pail the husband becim.- 1 bankrupt. Glass-blowers are known to dr'nk from .30 to tiO pints _f water during a day's work and to be nothing the worse for it, hut they are beaten by a v.-ung and capable worker of wiiom Dr. A ■ on reports that he drank 12 gallons oi water a day and a whole tubful of it during the night.