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。
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.
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"。
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.
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。
So different was it, they had never seen such a sight. And they found not just one of these things but many of them.
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。"
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."
"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。
"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."
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。
A team of five surgeons opened the patient up. They found exactly 28 knives, just like the man said.
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。
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.
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。
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。
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。
They did another scan in the operating theater and sure enough, found another 12, bringing the total to 40.
到底该男子为什么要"吃刀"，更何况是40把？
Why would a man swallow any knives, let alone 40?
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。"
The man simply said "I don't know why. They were taken on impulse only."
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。"
In fact, there is a condition called Pica, once described in the Journal of the American Board of Medicine, as "common, but commonly missed."
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。"
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."