Rhodius is accredited with seeing persons who swallowed spiders and scorpions.

Jonston says that Avicenna, Rufus, and Gentilis relate instances of young girls who acquired a taste for poisonous animals and substances, who could ingest them with impunity.
Colonia Agrippina was supposed to have eaten spiders with impunity.

Van Woensel is said to have seen persons who devoured live eels.
The habit of dirt eating or clay-eating, called pica, is well authenticated in many countries.

The Ephemerides contains mention of it; Hunter speaks of the blacks who eat potters' clay; Bartholinus describes dirt-eating as does also a Castro.

Properly speaking, dirt-eating should be called geophagism; it is common in the Antilles and South America, among the low classes, and is seen in the negroes and poorest classes of some portions of the Southern United States.