CLASS VI.—In our sixth class, the first record we have is from the Commentaries of Sigbert, which contains a description of a monstrosity born in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, who had two heads, two chests with four arms attached, but a single lower extremity. The emotions, affections, and appetites were different. One head might be crying while the other laughed, or one feeding while the other was sleeping. At times they quarreled and occasionally came to blows. This monster is said to have lived two years, one part dying four days before the other, which evinced symptoms of decay like its inseparable neighbor.
Roger of Wendover says that in Lesser Brittany and Normandy, in 1062, there was seen a female monster, consisting of two women joined about the umbilicus and fused into a single lower extremity. They took their food by two mouths but expelled it at a single orifice. At one time, one of the women laughed, feasted, and talked, while the other wept, fasted, and kept a religious silence. The account relates how one of them died, and the survivor bore her dead sister about for three years before she was overcome by the oppression and stench of the cadaver. Batemen describes the birth of a boy in 1529, who had two heads, four ears, four arms, but only two thighs and two legs. Buchanan speaks at length of the famous "Scottish Brothers," who were the cynosure of the eyes of the Court of James III of Scotland. This monster consisted of two men, ordinary in appearance in the superior extremities, whose trunks fused into a single lower extremity. The King took diligent care of their education, and they became proficient in music, languages, and other court accomplishments. Between them they would carry on animated conversations, sometimes merging into curious debates, followed by blows. Above the point of union they had no synchronous sensations, while below, sensation was common to both. This monster lived twenty-eight years, surviving the royal patron, who died June, 1488. One of the brothers died some days before the other, and the survivor, after carrying about his dead brother, succumbed to "infection from putrescence." There was reported to have been born in Switzerland a double headed male monster, who in 1538, at the age of thirty, was possessed of a beard on each face, the two bodies fused at the umbilicus into a single lower extremity. These two twins resembled one another in contour and countenance. They were so joined that at rest they looked upon one another. They had a single wife, with whom they were said to have lived in harmony. In the Gentleman's Magazine about one hundred and fifty years since there was given the portrait and description of a double woman, who was exhibited all over the large cities of Europe. Little can be ascertained anatomically of her construction, with the exception that it was stated that she had two heads, two necks, four arms, two legs, one pelvis, and one set of pelvic organs.
The most celebrated monster of this type was Ritta-Christina, who was born in Sassari, in Sardinia, March 23, 1829. These twins were the result of the ninth confinement of their mother, a woman of thirty-two. Their superior extremities were double, but they joined in a common trunk at a point a little below the mammae. Below this point they had a common trunk and single lower extremities. The right one, christened Ritta, was feeble and of a sad and melancholy countenance; the left, Christina, was vigorous and of a gay and happy aspect. They suckled at different times, and sensations in the upper extremities were distinct. They expelled urine and feces simultaneously, and had the indications in common. Their parents, who were very poor, brought them to Paris for the purpose of public exhibition, which at first was accomplished clandestinely, but finally interdicted by the public authorities, who feared that it would open a door for psychologic discussion and speculation. This failure of the parents to secure public patronage increased their poverty and hastened the death of the children by unavoidable exposure in a cold room. The nervous system of the twins had little in common except in the line of union, the anus, and the sexual organs, and Christina was in good health all through Ritta's sickness; when Ritta died, her sister, who was suckling at the mother's breast, suddenly relaxed hold and expired with a sigh. At the postmortem, which was secured with some difficulty on account of the authorities ordering the bodies to be burned, the pericardium was found single, covering both hearts. The digestive organs were double and separate as far as the lower third of the ilium, and the cecum was on the left side and single, in common with the lower bowel. The livers were fused and the uterus was double. The vertebral columns, which were entirely separate above, were joined below by a rudimentary os innorminatum. There was a junction between the manubrium of each. Sir Astley Cooper saw a monster in Paris in 1792 which, by his description, must have been very similar to Ritta-Christina.
The Tocci brothers were born in 1877 in the province of Turin, Italy. They each had a well-formed head, perfect arms, and a perfect thorax to the sixth rib; they had a common abdomen, a single anus, two legs, two sacra, two vertebral columns, one penis, but three buttocks, the central one containing a rudimentary anus. The right boy was christened Giovanni-Batista, and the left Giacomo. Each individual had power over the corresponding leg on his side, but not over the other one. Walking was therefore impossible. All their sensations and emotions were distinctly individual and independent. At the time of the report, in 1882, they were in good health and showed every indication of attaining adult age. Figure 48 represents these twins as they were exhibited several years ago in Germany.
McCallum saw two female children in Montreal in 1878 named Marie-Rosa Drouin. They formed a right angle with their single trunk, which commenced at the lower part of the thorax of each. They had a single genital fissure and the external organs of generation of a female. A little over three inches from the anus was a rudimentary limb with a movable articulation; it measured five inches in length and tapered to a fine point, being furnished with a distinct nail, and it contracted strongly to irritation. Marie, the left child, was of fair complexion and more strongly developed than Rosa. The sensations of hunger and thirst were not experienced at the same time, and one might be asleep while the other was crying. The pulsations and the respiratory movements were not synchronous. They were the products of the second gestation of a mother aged twenty-six, whose abdomen was of such preternatural size during pregnancy that she was ashamed to appear in public. The order of birth was as follows: one head and body, the lower extremity, and the second body and head.
CLASS VII.—There are many instances of bicephalic monsters on record. Pare mentions and gives an illustration of a female apparently single in conformation, with the exception of having two heads and two necks. The Ephemerides, Haller, Schenck, and Archenholz cite examples, and there is an old account of a double-headed child, each of whose heads were baptized, one called Martha and the other Mary. One was of a gay and the other a sad visage, and both heads received nourishment; they only lived a couple of days. There is another similar record of a Milanese girl who had two heads, but was in all other respects single, with the exception that after death she was found to have had two stomachs. Besse mentions a Bavarian woman of twenty-six with two heads, one of which was comely and the other extremely ugly; Batemen quotes what is apparently the same case—a woman in Bavaria in 1541 with two heads, one of which was deformed, who begged from door to door, and who by reason of the influence of pregnant women was given her expenses to leave the country.
A more common occurrence of this type is that in which there is fusion of the two heads. Moreau speaks of a monster in Spain which was shown from town to town. Its heads were fused; it had two mouths and two noses; in each face an eye well conformed and placed above the nose; there was a third eye in the middle of the forehead common to both heads; the third eye was of primitive development and had two pupils. Each face was well formed and had its own chin. Buffon mentions a cat, the exact analogue of Moreau's case. Sutton speaks of a photograph sent to Sir James Paget in 1856 by William Budd of Bristol. This portrays a living child with a supernumerary head, which had mouth, nose, eyes, and a brain of its own. The eyelids were abortive, and as there was no orbital cavity the eyes stood out in the form of naked globes on the forehead. When born, the corneas of both heads were transparent, but then became opaque from exposure. The brain of the supernumerary head was quite visible from without, and was covered by a membrane beginning to slough. On the right side of the head was a rudimentary external ear. The nurse said that when the child sucked some milk regurgitated through the