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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Charles Domery/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 01:51, 20 August 2010 [1].

Charles Domery

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Charles Domery (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s):  – iridescent 14:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is the third of my "eating disorders of the French Revolutionary Wars" mini-series along with Daniel Lambert and Tarrare. Domery was a Polish soldier who ended up in the French Army. He proceeded to eat his way through the cats of Paris, before being captured by the British and subjected to a bizarre experiment in which he was fed four pounds of raw cow's udder, ten pounds of raw beef, and twenty-four candles over the course of a day. He then disappeared into complete obscurity before Charles Dickens unearthed his story in the 1850s.

Because the only surviving records of him are those from his captivity in Liverpool (the back-story up to that date relies on his testimony and the debriefs of his captured shipmates), his story is necessarily patchy, and we know virtually nothing about his life other than his eating habits. I'm fairly confident that this does cover everything that's recorded about the man. (One minor note: the formal name of The Commissioners for taking Care of Sick and Wounded Seamen and for the Care and Treatment of Prisoners of War is written out in full, rather than using its common name of Sick and Hurt Commissioners, as I feel the former makes it more obvious why they were taking an interest in the health of a prisoner-of-war.) – iridescent 14:58, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: no dab links, no external links. Ucucha 15:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support:Great article, well written as always. Relies quite heavily on Bondeson and Wilson, but that is reasonable, given the obscurity of the subject matter. One more post-nineteenth century source would be nice, but it is definitely acceptable, if none can be found. If no other serious objections are raised by other editors, I support. P. S. Burton (talk) 18:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bondeson and Armand Marie Leroi are both used heavily in this series; there are lots of people writing "weird facts" style material, but Bondeson and Leroi are the only significant professional medical writers (both are qualified doctors) working in the field of historical teratology (that is, "what was actually wrong with these people?"), and published by university presses and academic publishers rather than Horrible Histories style pop-culture. Leroi doesn't cover Domery, so Bondeson ends up being used a lot by default.
    Regarding Wilson, I've primarily used him as he was the first person (AFAIK) to cover the case, so his coverage doesn't have the accumulated weight of later speculation. Virtually everything ever written about Domery is essentially commentary on Johnston's notes from the interrogation and experiments; a Google Books search on "Having in August and September last been engaged in a tour of public duty" (the first line of Johnston's account) brings up quite a bit of 19th-century reprinting of and commentary on Johnston's report, so it would be easy enough to spread the sourcing about, but there doesn't seem to be any particular point to it—none of them make any additional points to what is already covered. – iridescent 14:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

Comments

  • This article is both fascinating and nauseating. Not a bad combination. I noticed a couple of things, but once they are addressed, I have no problem supporting this one.
    • "He preferred raw meat to cooked; while his favourite dish was a raw bullock's liver" Maybe a strange question, but what's a "bullock" I tried googling, but it takes a while to wade through all the Sandra Bullock hits, perhaps there is an article here that could be used.
    • Any reason for the exclusion of an infobox on a biography article? Not a major sticking point if it can be explained. Canada Hky (talk) 01:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • There's no "articles need infoboxes" policy, and there's nothing that would be gained by adding one. Infoboxes are there to allow quick comparison between articles on similar topics; an infobox in this case would have no information that isn't already covered in the lead, and would serve no useful purpose. – iridescent 14:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - explained / addressed to my satisfaction. Canada Hky (talk) 20:27, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Really enjoyed reading this Iridescent, a great article. I hope you don't mind, but I made a few minor changes which I think improve the prose a little. If you disagree, please revert, and accept my apologies. I do have a few other points, which I didn't change because I wasn't sure on:
  • In the lead, could 'rations of the Prussians' be 'Prussian rations', or would that change the meaning?
  • There seems to be inconsistency in the use of numbers; for example, you have 'one pound' and '4 or 5 pounds'. Sometimes the number is used, and sometimes its spelt. Is this standard practice?
  • That's it though. Good job! I liked it almost as much as Tarrare. Tom (talk) 11:54, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In general, numbers are written if they're integers <10, and given as numbers if they're more than one digit. In the case of "4–5 pounds" to me it looked clumsy writing it out, but I've no strong opinion. – iridescent 14:19, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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