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India : Man Swallowed Hundreds of Coins and Nails Due to Family "Depression"

In India, a farmer is found to have hundreds of coins and nails in his belly after swallowing them
because he was 'depressed'according to DailyMailUK post.

Rajpal Singh, 34 arrived at a hospital complaining of stomach ache, doctors suspected it might be a run-of-the-mill case of food poisoning or an ulcer.


However they were amazed to find the man had actually swallowed hundreds of coins and nails.

Over a three year period Singh had swallowed 140 coins, 150 nails and a handful of nuts, bolts and batteries.

He had also gulped down screws, nails and magnets.

The image shows an X-ray with the mass of metal objects shown in white in his stomach

Doctors were amazed when an endoscopy (a long thin tube with a camera attached) revealed hundreds of foreign objects inside Mr Singh's stomach.

The endoscopy is pictured.


Mr Singh, a farmer from Bathinda in India's western state of Punjab, said his bizarre habit began after he fell into a depression, and eating metal objects brought him comfort.

'Due to family problems I had slipped into depression and got hooked onto this weird habit.

'I used to gulp down coins and metals with fruit juice or milk' he added.

'Doctors have told me those sharp objects would have punctured my intestine and I would have eventually died.

'I feel much more relaxed now. I am never going to do this again.'

Doctors have carried out 240 endoscopy procedures to remove the objects, as well as a nine-hour operation. But Mr Singh will still need another procedure to remove the rest of the metal said the report.

Historically, a French entertainer in the named of Michel Lotito was known for having passion of eating metals in his performance acts. He came to be known as Monsieur Mangetout ("Mr Eat-All").

His performances involved the consumption of metal, glass, rubber and other materials. He disassembled, cut-up, and consumed bicycles, shopping carts, televisions, a Cessna 150, and other items. The Cessna 150 took roughly two years to be "eaten", from 1978 to 1980. He began eating unusual material as a teenager around 16 years of age and performed publicly from 1966.

Lotito claimed not to suffer ill effects from consuming the materials, even after consuming materials usually considered poisonous. When performing, he consumed around 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of material daily, preceding it with mineral oil and drinking considerable quantities of water during the meal.He said, however, that bananas and hard-boiled eggs made him sick. It is estimated that between 1959 and 1997, Lotito "had eaten nearly nine tons of metal according to Wikipedia's report.

Source : DailyMailUK