Cardiologist Meyers (The Woman Who Swallowed a Toothbrush) offers 50 new case histories. Meyers insists that he isn't writing from personal experience, instead scouring medical journals from the near and distant past. While the stories he recounts are certainly gruesome, they may only attract a select, tenacious readership. The book opens with an account of a junior high-school student who hoped to gain friends by performing magic tricks, one of which was belching fire. To achieve this, he swallowed lighter fluid, and as might be expected, suffered an ulcerated colon. In the title story, a woman—who apparently suffered from untreated bipolar disorder—killed her cat in a frenzy, then cut and ate it, swallowing its eyeballs, paws, tail, and other body parts, before choking on a kidney. Meyers embellishes this tasteless account with the comment that the woman at least "had enough foresight to flavor it with her favorite steak sauce." He also tells of a would-be criminal, suffering from the "Santa Claus Syndrome," who, stuck in a chimney overnight, had to have his arms and legs amputated because of tissue damage. (Oct.)