When a patient shows up at a hospital with severe abdominal¹ pain and an ultrasound reveals a mass in his stomach, it's only logical to think first of a tumor², perhaps cancer.

当一名有严重腹痛症状的病人出现在医院，并且超声诊断结果显示在胃部有块状物的时候，医生的第一反应往往是肿瘤，并且有癌症的可能。

And that's just what surgeons at Amritsar Corporate³ Hospital in India at first assumed, according to a hospital news release. But then they put a camera down into the man's stomach "and saw a very different kind of thing," Jatinder Malholtra, the chief surgeon, told The Washington Post.

根据印度阿姆利丹的社区医院发布的消息显示，该院的外科医生起初也是这么认为的。主治医生贾汀德·马赫塔拉在接受《华盛顿邮报》采访时表示，当把微型摄像头伸到该男子的胃部时，却有了"不同寻常的发现"。

So different was it, they had never seen such a sight. And they found not just one of these things but many of them.

如此反常的病症连医生都未曾见过，他们发现在该男子体内不仅仅是有一个而是几十个这样的物体。

The things were knives, pocket knives, each about seven inches long. "In 20 years, I've never seen such a patient," Malholtra said in an interview. "I was amazed."

那些不明物竟然是长约七英寸的小折刀。马赫塔拉医生在采访时说道："我当时也震惊了，我从医二十多年来从未遇到过这样的病人。"

"We asked the patient whether he had consumed these knives in a few days or a few months," said Malholtra. "He said he had taken 28 in number in the last two months."

"当我们询问病人是否清楚这些刀在他体内的时间时，病人称在过去的两个月里他总计吞下28把刀。"马赫塔拉医生说。

A team of five surgeons opened the patient up. They found exactly 28 knives, just like the man said.

由五位外科医生组成的医疗团队为该病人进行了开腹手术，他们在其体内，正好发现了如病人所说的28把小折刀。

But while some of the knives were folded up, some were not. Their blades exposed, the man was bleeding profusely⁴. He could not have survived much longer, Malholtra added.

不过这些刀中有一些是折起的，而有一些是打开的，刀刃露在外面，因此病人出现了大出血的症状。马赫塔拉补充说道，他不太可能活这么长时间。

Perhaps the man, a 42-year-old police officer, had miscalculated. Perhaps his appetite for knives was greater than even he knew. After all, a man who eats knives is not normal。

也许是这位在警察局工作的42岁病人数错了，亦或是他这种"吃刀"的欲望已经超乎自身的意识，毕竟这种"吃刀"的人很难说是精神正常的。

They did another scan in the operating theater and sure enough, found another 12, bringing the total to 40.

医生在手术室里对该病人又进行了一次扫描，果然又发现了12把刀，这样在该病人体内总共发现了40把刀。

Why would a man swallow any knives, let alone 40?

到底该男子为什么要"吃刀"，更何况是40把？

The man simply said "I don't know why. They were taken on impulse only."

据该男子简单地表示："我也不知道为什么，我就是因为一时的冲动吃了它们。"

In fact, there is a condition called Pica, once described in the Journal of the American Board of Medicine, as "common, but commonly missed."

实际上，有一种叫做"异食癖"的病，曾被美国医学协会成为"一种普遍，但是又一般被忽略的疾病。"

Pica, said the article. "is the compulsive eating of nonnutritive substances. Although it has been described since antiquity⁵, there has been no single agreed-upon explanation of the cause of such behavior."

论文中称，"异食癖"一般表现为"对于某些无营养物质的高度痴狂，虽然从很久之前就对这种疾病有过记载，但至今为止医学界对引起此种病症的原因仍没有一个统一的解释。"