Tarrare's Wooden Box

Origin
Tarrare was a French soldier and showman who could eat extremely large amounts of food but would still be hungry. On the outbreak of the War of the First Coalition, Tarrare joined the French Revolutionary Army. With rations unable to provide for his needs, he would root through gutters and trash to search for anything to eat.

Suffering from exhaustion, medical tests were performed on him in a hospital, where his eating capacity was tested. He devoured a meal for 15 in one sitting and scarfed down live animals, still suffering from hunger. Despite his unusual diet, he was of normal size and appearance, and showed no signs of mental illness other than what was described as an apathetic temperament.

General Alexandre de Beauharnais decided to put Tarrare's abilities to use, and he was employed as a courier by the French army, with the intention that he would swallow documents within a box, pass through enemy lines, and recover them when safely at his destination. Unfortunately for Tarrare, he could not speak German, and on his first mission was captured by Prussian forces, severely beaten and underwent a mock execution before being returned to French lines.

Chastened by this experience, he agreed to submit to any procedure that would cure his appetite, and was treated with laudanum, tobacco pills, wine vinegar and soft-boiled eggs. The procedures failed, and doctors could not keep him on a controlled diet; he would eat trash outside the hospital and attempted to drink other patients blood and eat corpses in the morgue. He was later discharged and reappeared four years later in Versailles, suffering from tuberculosis before dying.

This artifact inspired the 1986 Twilight Zone episode "Misfortune Cookie".

Effects
Activates when a person places a document in it. The person will become able to consume large amounts of food but will be unable to satisfy their hunger. Being affected over a long period of time will lead to nutrient deficiency and rapid sickness as their body will be unable to process most of the food they eat into energy.