Hungry Man

The mess sergeants at Fort McPherson, to whom hearty appetites are an old story, were openly impressed. The medium-sized (140-lb., 5 -ft. 7-in.) private kept bringing his tray back & back. When he had finished breakfast he had finished 60 eggs and 76 hot cakes. At that rate, he was getting some 30,000 calories a day (a hearty male diet: 6,000).

By the time the press discovered him last week, Pfc. Chester J. ("The Stomach") Salvatori, a horn-tooter in an itinerant Army band, had landed in the Fort McPherson Post Hospital; he had been under observation there for a month. Hospital Commandant Colonel Burgh S. Burnett had an old-fashioned diagnosis: there was nothing abnormal about Salvatori's metabolism -- it was really only his ego that needed nourishment. "He is an exhibitionist who puts on this eating show for the benefit of fellow soldiers." The Army had him eat alone, restricted his caloric intake to 7,000 a day.

But while the newspaper excitement was en, the hospital absentmindedly gave Salvatori a pass. He made a beeline for an Atlanta cafeteria, where customers and the press watched him eat seven orders of fried chicken, ten orders of French fries, nine glasses of orange juice, two quarts of milk, ten combination salads, five egg salads, two orders of olives, two glasses of iced coffee, two slices of watermelon, five orders of rolls and five slices of apple pie a la mode. Cost: $9.95. He was eating light, he said, because he had already had six candy bars and a quart of ice cream.

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