BEZOAR

A bezoar is a mass of foreign material trapped somewhere in the gastrointestinal system. Typically, these obstructions are found in the stomach where they are formed from food boli, celulose, medications or hair.

There is even a syndrome specifically described for hairy bezoars in the stomach and the small bowel. Rapunzel Syndrome, named after the heroin of the famous fairytale, typicall occurs in psychiatric patients suffering from trichophagia, which is the compulsive need to ingest hair.

In the middle ages, bezoars were considered magical. Bezoar stones where thought to cure any poison, until the theory was tested by a physician on a convicted fellon condemned to death by poisoning. After the prisoner was poisoned, the physician treated him with a bezoar. The fellon died 7 hours later in extreme agony, proving definitively that bezoars could not cure poisoning.

The consumption of under-ripe persimmons is the leading cause of Bezoars in humans.

Due to modern, medical intervention, bezoars are rarely lethal. However, they can be quite disturbing due to their sheer size and foreign appearance.

This sick gets a

1 on my "lethality scale" (1-10)

and a 3 on my "disturbing scale" (1-10)