400 DujDlicate Twins and Double Monsters 



at the age of five months succumbed to an unsuccessful attempt to separate 

 them. The famous Biddenden maids (5), Mary-Eliza Chulkhurst, appear to 

 have belonged to this type. They were born at Biddenden, Kent, England, in 

 the year 1100, and lived thirty-four years. In accordance with the conditions 

 of a legacy left them, there is still in that place an annual distribution of food 

 combined with several curious customs (cf. Teratologia, 1894-95).' 



[The region of attachment of pygopagi often involves the outlets of the 

 pelvic organs, producing various relationships in the different cases. Thus in 

 the Bohemian twins there is a single anus, a single urethra, but two vag- 

 ina, two recti and two bladders; in Tynberg's case, there are two vaginae 

 and two urethrse, but a single anus with a double rectum, divided by a peri- 

 neum. In others there seems to have been two complete sets, of these parts. 



d. Connection at ischia, so that the axes of the two bodies extend in a 

 straight line, hut in opposite directions (Ischiopagi). Anus and genitals 

 laterally placed between the legs of the same side. — These cases are said 

 to be quite numerous, but seldom if ever live beyond infancy. 



Type: As there seems to be no especially celebrated case to serve as a type, 

 I will present a fac-simile of an old engraving (Fig. 1) evidently drawn from 

 nature, and portraying a " Missgeburt " that occurred in Hanau, near Prank- 

 fort, in March, 1643. This type is so accurately portrayed in the engraving 

 as to reflect great credit upon the artist and upon the genuine scientific obser- 

 vations of the time. It is of interest to compare this with the photographs 

 of the Jones twins, given by Gould and Pyle, p. 183. 



Other cases: 



1. Oxford (England) sisters, b. 1552, lived but a short time. 



2. Fare's twins, b. 1570, and baptized Louis and Louise. This seems to 



imply that they were of opposite sexes, but this is intrinsically 

 improbable. It is more likely either that the record is not wholly 

 trustworthy or that the twins were both boys, since girl's names 

 were frequently bestowed upon boys during that epoch. 



' The Samoan legend of the " two swimming sisters of the sea " gives 

 a. most detailed and perfectly accurate description of female pygopagous twins, 

 leaving it beyond question that the tale is in part a reminiscence of an actual 

 case probably antedating any other record. 



The fact of the union between these two sisters " is so clearly brought out 

 in all the legends as to lead one to the belief that there must be at least this 

 historic basis, that in Samoan antiquity there must have been a pair of twins 

 united more or less extensively by connecting ligaments. Not only is the fact 

 of the junction clearly dwelt upon, but the manner of the attachment is no 

 less distinctly stated. This was by a ligament connecting in each member 

 of the couple a point on the spine high up between the shoulder blades. The 

 sisters were thus brought back to back; when one walked forward the other 

 had to step backward; when one Dent over to pick up anything on the ground 

 the other was lifted in the air and borne on her sister's back. In every 

 account of the twins explicit mention is made of these inconveniences and 

 without the omission or alteration of a single material particular." [Quoted 

 from Llewella Pierce Churchill, in Forest and Stream, August 24, 1901.] 



