Anomalous Consumption

Anomalous consumption refers to any persistent attempts to eat things which are categorically not food. There are two specific types of anomalous consumption:

1. Pup-specific, which is an expected stage of pup development. Pups will, without fail, attempt to eat anything and everything they encounter, whether it counts as food or not, whether they can digest it or not. A surgeon's regular shift includes at least one pup who has swallowed something indigestible, and other doctors are routinely treating pups who have somehow made themselves sick.
2. Adult-specific, a behavior commonly manifest in extreme circumstances such as starvation, sometimes connected to Isolation Sicknesses but considerably less well-known.

The latter is an extremely rare condition so poorly understood that only a few knew it existed. However, insurgent attacks in Mundeen, in response to Stenza political chicanery in the past decade leading to violent war, have managed to take and hold several Stenza prisoners for periods up to a year, Mudewei time. The stressful conditions prompted the prisoners to unconsciously upload data to the Collective Knowledge, and also drove them into doing such things as consuming dirt and rocks (the most logical action by a Stenza prisoner during this period was to kill a captor for her body fat). Most of the prisoners were recovered alive, and the data provided to the Collective allowed doctors to determine that severe nutrient deficiencies seemed to cause their bouts of strange behavior. Once the deficiencies were corrected, all patients recovered.
The appropriate notes have been made on the off chance it happens again, although this seems unlikely.

Type

Neurological

Origin

Natural

Rarity

Extremely Rare