![]() And, as doctors all over Europe examined them, their anatomy was pretty much that way. The boys appeared to be one boy from the waist down, but were two full boys from the waist up. Their father was so shocked by the twins' appearance that he was sent to a mental asylum for a month. Giacomo and Giovanni Battista Tocci were born in Locana, Italy, sometime between 18. They lived to age 61, when they died of tuberculosis in 1912, seventeen hours apart. They retired from show business at age 58, and settled in Columbus, North Carolina, becoming once again Millie and Christine. They sang, danced, and played musical instruments to great acclaim, and earned plenty of money on their own after slavery was abolished. Billed as “The Two-headed Nightingale,” Millie and Christine were renamed Millie-Christine, as if they were one person. Instead of being exhibited as conjoined twins, they were advertised as one girl with two heads (and four arms and four legs). When their exhibitor Smith died in 1862, the twins were inherited by his son Joseph, Jr. As the girls grew, they learned to sing in harmony at their shows. The twins were kidnapped by another exhibitor and only found three years later, in England, and returned to the States. Pervis sold them to Joseph Pearson Smith and his partner named Brower. He sold the twins and their mother to showman John Pervis when they were eight months old. Millie and Christine McKoy were born in North Carolina in 1851, to a slave family owned by Jabez McKay. So they remained conjoined until 1874, when they died three hours apart. Chang and Eng pursued the possibility of separation several times, but doctors at that time could not predict what would happen. They married two sisters (over their parents’ objections) and raised 21 children between them. In 1839, they quit show business and bought a farm in North Carolina. When they turned 21, Chang and Eng took charge of their own affairs and began to make serious money. for years, exhibiting their bodies and abilities. British merchant Robert Hunter encountered the twins as teenagers and arranged to take them to England. They achieved such fame that the term “Siamese twins” would come to be used to describe the condition of conjoined twins, when in Chang and Eng’s case, it was used simply to denote their homeland. Their birth was so shocking that the King of Siam ordered them killed -but their mother refused to hand the boys over, so the order was never carried out. Chang and Eng BunkerĬhang and Eng Bunker were born in Thailand (called Siam at the time) in 1811. The inner parts concealed do lie hid from our eyes, alas!īut all the body here you view erect in solid brass." 3. That this great wonder of the age should not be hid from view. Their parents poor did send them forth, the world to travel through, The other parts their numbers keep, and serve their owners well. One urine passage serves for both one anus, so they tell Lucina, woman's gentle friend, did Helen first receive Īnd Judith, when three hours had passed, her mother's womb did leave. Which noble fort may all the arts of Turkish sultans scorn. ![]() The town of Szoenii gave them birth, hard by far-famed Komorn, That naught their bodies can divide, no power beneath the sun. "Two sisters wonderful to behold, who have thus grown as one, Alexander Pope wrote a poem about the Hungarian Sisters that gave them immortality. ![]() When the girls were nine, they entered a convent, where they lived in privacy until their death on the same day at age 22. Afterward, she leaned heavily on the more robust Helen. She suffered a stroke at age six, which left her paralyzed on the left side. Judith, the twin whose birth was delayed, was the weaker of the two. ![]() They learned many languages, and sang together for audiences. From age two through nine, the girls were exhibited all over Europe, and examined by doctors from each country. The girls’ pelvises were fused, back to back. Whether or not this is true, it brings up an image of a terrifying experience for a frightened and exhausted mother. Helen and Judith were born in Hungary in 1701, supposedly three hours apart. ![]()
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