UNUSUAL BUT TRUE

187 COINS DISCOVERED

IN THE STOMACH OF A THIRTY INDIAN

But nothing could prepare the doctors at Hangal Sri Kumareshwar in Bagalkot, India for what they unearthed in late November from the bowels of a man in his thirties.

Taken to the hospital by his family, the patient complained of “sloshing” and frequent vomiting.

Preliminary examinations, X-rays and endoscopies, made it possible to quickly determine the cause of these disorders: an enormous quantity of coins, swallowed every day for three months.

A weight of 1.5 kilos of metal

A surgical intervention of more than two hours made it possible to extract a total of 187 pieces for a weight of 1.5 kg.

“The stomach was terribly distended and there were pieces in every corner,” explains Dr Eshwar Kalaburgi. But, miraculously, the man, whose identity has not been revealed, retains few after-effects of this bewildering diet: “We treated the onset of dehydration and a few other minor symptoms. But the patient is stable and can speak normally.”

The Japanese record: 1894 pieces

This coin-eater suffers from a psychiatric disorder no doubt related to pica, magpie in Latin, which pushes certain individuals to compulsively ingest materials of all kinds, paper, fabric, wood, plastic and, of course, metal.

Cared for by psychiatrists, this patient will probably not, and fortunately, have the opportunity to equal the Japanese record in this area: 1894 coins absorbed by a man in his fifties for two decades .

He too survived despite this 8.5 kilo “treasure” occupying most of his stomach.