Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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