The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 8, February 22, 2004, Article 25

A CURIOUS CASE OF COIN SWALLOWING

  Len Augsberger sent a link to a story about a patient in
  France found to have hundreds of coins in his belly:

  "French doctors were taken aback when they discovered
  the reason for a patient's sore, swollen belly: He had
  swallowed around 350 coins -- $650 worth -- along with
  assorted necklaces and needles.

  The 62-year-old man came to the emergency room of Cholet
  General Hospital in western France in 2002. He had a history
  of major psychiatric illness, was suffering from stomach pain,
  and could not eat or move his bowels.

  His family warned doctors that he sometimes swallowed coins,
  and a few had been removed from his stomach in past hospital
  visits.

  Still, doctors were awed when they took an X-ray. They
  discovered an enormous opaque mass in his stomach that
  turned out to weigh 12 pounds -- as much as some bowling
  balls. It was so heavy it had forced his stomach down between
  his hips.

  Five days after his arrival, doctors cut him open and removed
  his badly damaged stomach with its contents. He died 12 days
  later from complications."

  "The patient's rare condition is called pica, a compulsion to eat
  things not normally consumed as food. Its name comes from
  the Latin word for magpie, a bird thought to eat just about
  anything."

  Coin Swallowing Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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