印度男子吃下40把刀 醫生從胃中取出挽回生命

When a patient shows up at a hospital with severe abdominal pain and an ultrasound reveals a mass in his stomach, it's only logical to think first of a tumor, perhaps cancer.
當一名有嚴重腹痛症狀的病人出現在醫院，並且超聲診斷結果顯示在胃部有塊狀物的時候，醫生的第一反應往往是腫瘤，並且有癌症的可能。

And that's just what surgeons at Amritsar Corporate 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.
根據印度阿姆利丹的社區醫院發佈的消息顯示，該院的外科醫生起初也是這麼認爲的。主治醫生賈汀德·馬赫塔拉在接受《華盛頓郵報》採訪時表示，當把微型攝像頭伸到該男子的胃部時，卻有了"不同尋常的發現"。

So different was it, they had never seen such a sight. And they found not just one of these things but many of them.
如此反常的病症連醫生都未曾見過，他們發現在該男子體內不僅僅是有一個而是幾十個這樣的物體。

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."
那些不明物竟然是長約七英寸的小折刀。馬赫塔拉醫生在採訪時說道："我當時也震驚了，我從醫二十多年來從未遇到過這樣的病人。"

"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."
"當我們詢問病人是否清楚這些刀在他體內的時間時，病人稱在過去的兩個月裏他總計吞下28把刀。"馬赫塔拉醫生說。

A team of five surgeons opened the patient up. They found exactly 28 knives, just like the man said.
由五位外科醫生組成的醫療團隊爲該病人進行了開腹手術，他們在其體內，正好發現瞭如病人所說的28把小折刀。

But while some of the knives were folded up, some were not. Their blades exposed, the man was bleeding profusely. He could not have survived much longer, Malholtra added.
不過這些刀中有一些是折起的，而有一些是打開的，刀刃露在外面，因此病人出現了大出血的症狀。馬赫塔拉補充說道，他不太可能活這麼長時間。

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。
也許是這位在警察局工作的42歲病人數錯了，亦或是他這種"吃刀"的慾望已經超乎自身的意識，畢竟這種"吃刀"的人很難說是精神正常的。

They did another scan in the operating theater and sure enough, found another 12, bringing the total to 40.
醫生在手術室裏對該病人又進行了一次掃描，果然又發現了12把刀，這樣在該病人體內總共發現了40把刀。

Why would a man swallow any knives, let alone 40?
到底該男子爲什麼要"吃刀"，更何況是40把？

The man simply said "I don't know why. They were taken on impulse only."
據該男子簡單地表示："我也不知道爲什麼，我就是因爲一時的衝動吃了它們。"

In fact, there is a condition called Pica, once described in the Journal of the American Board of Medicine, as "common, but commonly missed."
實際上，有一種叫做"異食癖"的病，曾被美國醫學協會成爲"一種普遍，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 antiquity, there has been no single agreed-upon explanation of the cause of such behavior."
論文中稱，"異食癖"一般表現爲"對於某些無營養物質的高度癡狂，雖然從很久之前就對這種疾病有過記載，但至今爲止醫學界對引起此種病症的原因仍沒有一個統一的解釋。"