Anomalies And Curiosities Of Medicine Part 11

The following is a communication to "Notes and Queries," March 21, 1891: "Mrs. Mary Honeywood was daughter and one of the coheiresses of Robert Waters, Esq., of Lenham, in Kent. She was born in 1527; married in February, 1543, at sixteen years of age, to her only husband, Robert Honeywood, Esq., of Charing, in Kent. She died in the ninety-third year of her age, in May, 1620. She had 16 children of her own body, 7 sons and 9 daughters, of whom one had no issue, 3 died young--the youngest was slain at Newport battle, June 20, 1600. Her grandchildren, in the second generation, were 114; in the third, 228, and in the fourth, 9; so that she could almost say the same as the distich doth of one of the Dalburg family of Basil: 'Rise up, daughter and go to thy daughter, for thy daughter's daughter hath a daughter.'

"In Markshal Church, in Ess.e.x, on Mrs. Honeywood's tomb is the following inscription: 'Here lieth the body of Mary Waters, the daughter and coheir of Robert Waters, of Lenham, in Kent, wife of Robert Honeywood, of Charing, in Kent, her only husband, who had at her decease, lawfully descended from her, 367 children, 16 of her own body, 114 grandchildren, 228 in the third generation, and 9 in the fourth.

She lived a most pious life and died at Markshal, in the ninety-third year of her age and the forty-fourth of her widowhood, May 11, 1620.'

(From 'Curiosities for the Ingenious,' 1826.) S. S. R."

Animal prolificity though not finding a place in this work, presents some wonderful anomalies.

In ill.u.s.tration we may note the following: In the Ill.u.s.trated London News, May 11, 1895, is a portrait of "Lady Millard," a fine St. Bernard b.i.t.c.h, the property of Mr. Thorp of Northwold, with her litter of 21 puppies, born on February 9, 1896, their sire being a magnificent dog--"Young York." There is quoted an incredible account of a cow, the property of J. N. Sawyer of Ohio, which gave birth to 56 calves, one of which was fully matured and lived, the others being about the size of kittens; these died, together with the mother. There was a cow in France, in 1871, delivered of 5 calves.

CHAPTER V.

MAJOR TERATA.

Monstrosities have attracted notice from the earliest time, and many of the ancient philosophers made references to them. In mythology we read of Centaurs, impossible beings who had the body and extremities of a beast; the Cyclops, possessed of one enormous eye; or their parallels in Egyptian myths, the men with pectoral eyes,--the creatures "whose heads do beneath their shoulders grow;" and the Fauns, those sylvan deities whose lower extremities bore resemblance to those of a goat.

Monsters possessed of two or more heads or double bodies are found in the legends and fairy tales of every nation. Hippocrates, his precursors, Empedocles and Democritus, and Pliny, Aristotle, and Galen, have all described monsters, although in extravagant and ridiculous language.

Ballantyne remarks that the occasional occurrence of double monsters was a fact known to the Hippocratic school, and is indicated by a pa.s.sage in De morbis muliebribus, in which it is said that labor is gravely interfered with when the infant is dead or apoplectic or double. There is also a reference to monochorionic twins (which are by modern teratologists regarded as monstrosities) in the treatise De Superfoetatione, in which it is stated that "a woman, pregnant with twins, gives birth to them both at the same time, just as she has conceived them; the two infants are in a single chorion."

Ancient Explanations of Monstrosities.--From the time of Galen to the sixteenth century many incredible reports of monsters are seen in medical literature, but without a semblance of scientific truth. There has been little improvement in the mode of explanation of monstrous births until the present century, while in the Middle Ages the superst.i.tions were more ludicrous and observers more ignorant than before the time of Galen. In his able article on the teratologic records of Chaldea, Ballantyne makes the following trite statements: "Credulity and superst.i.tion have never been the peculiar possession of the lower types of civilization only, and the special beliefs that have gathered round the occurrence of teratologic phenomena have been common to the cultured Greek and Roman of the past, the ignorant peasant of modern times, and the savage tribes of all ages. Cla.s.sical writings, the literature of the Middle Ages, and the popular beliefs of the present day all contain views concerning teratologic subjects which so closely resemble those of the Chaldean magi as to be indistinguishable from them. Indeed, such works as those of Obsequens, Lycosthenes, Licetus, and Ambroise Pare only repeat, but with less accuracy of description and with greater freedom of imagination, the beliefs of ancient Babylon. Even at the present time the most impossible cases of so-called 'maternal impressions' are widely scattered through medical literature; and it is not very long since I received a letter from a distinguished member of the profession asking me whether, in my opinion, I thought it possible for a woman to give birth to a dog. Of course, I do not at all mean to infer that teratology has not made immense advances within recent times, nor do I suggest that on such subjects the knowledge of the magi can be compared with that of the average medical student of the present; but what I wish to emphasize is that, in the literature of ancient Babylonia, there are indications of an acquaintance with structural defects and malformations of the human body which will compare favorably with even the writings of the sixteenth century of the Christian era."

Many reasons were given for the existence of monsters, and in the Middle Ages these were as faulty as the descriptions themselves. They were interpreted as divinations, and were cited as forebodings and examples of wrath, or even as glorifications of the Almighty. The semi-human creatures were invented or imagined, and cited as the results of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity and allied forms of s.e.xual perversion prevalent in those times. We find minute descriptions and portraits of these impossible results of wicked practices in many of the older medical books. According to Pare there was born in 1493, as the result of illicit intercourse between a woman and a dog, a creature resembling in its upper extremities its mother, while its lower extremities were the exact counterpart of its canine father. This particular case was believed by Bateman and others to be a precursor to the murders and wickedness that followed in the time of Pope Alexander I. Volatera.n.u.s, Cardani, and many others cite instances of this kind. Lycosthenes says that in the year 1110, in the bourg of Liege, there was found a creature with the head, visage, hands, and feet of a man, and the rest of the body like that of a pig. Pare quotes this case and gives an ill.u.s.tration. Rhodiginus mentions a shepherd of Cybare by the name of Cratain, who had connection with a female goat and impregnated her, so that she brought forth a beast with a head resembling that of the father, but with the lower extremities of a goat. He says that the likeness to the father was so marked that the head-goat of the herd recognized it, and accordingly slew the goatherd who had sinned so unnaturally.

In the year 1547, at Cracovia, a very strange monster was born, which lived three days. It had a head shaped like that of a man; a nose long and hooked like an elephant's trunk; the hands and feet looking like the web-foot of a goose; and a tail with a hook on it. It was supposed to be a male, and was looked upon as a result of sodomy. Rueff says that the procreation of human beings and beasts is brought about--

(1) By the natural appet.i.te;

(2) By the provocation of nature by delight;

(3) By the attractive virtue of the matrix, which in beasts and women is alike.

Plutarch, in his "Lesser Parallels," says that Aristonymus Ephesius, son of Demonstratus, being tired of women, had carnal knowledge with an a.s.s, which in the process of time brought forth a very beautiful child, who became the maid Onoscelin. He also speaks of the origin of the maiden Hippona, or as he calls her, Hippo, as being from the connection of a man with a mare. Aristotle mentions this in his paradoxes, and we know that the patron of horses was Hippona. In Helvetia was reported the existence of a colt (whose mother had been covered by a bull) that was half horse and half bull. One of the kings of France was supposed to have been presented with a colt with the hinder part of a hart, and which could outrun any horse in the kingdom. Its mother had been covered by a hart.

Writing in 1557, Lycosthenes reports the mythical birth of a serpent by a woman. It is quite possible that some known and cla.s.sified type of monstrosity was indicated here in vague terms. In 1726 Mary Toft, of G.o.dalming, in Surrey, England, achieved considerable notoriety throughout Surrey, and even over all England, by her extensively circulated statements that she bore rabbits. Even at so late a day as this the credulity of the people was so great that many persons believed in her. The woman was closely watched, and being detected in her maneuvers confessed her fraud. To show the extent of discussion this case called forth, there are no less than nine pamphlets and books in the Surgeon-General's library at Washington devoted exclusively to this case of pretended rabbit-breeding. Hamilton in 1848, and Hard in 1884, both report the births in this country of fetal monstrosities with heads which showed marked resemblance to those of dogs. Doubtless many of the older cases of the supposed results of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, if seen to-day, could be readily cla.s.sified among some of our known forms of monsters. Modern investigation has shown us the sterile results of the connections between man and beast or between beasts of different species, and we can only wonder at the simple credulity and the imaginative minds of our ancestors. At one period certain phenomena of nature, such as an eclipse or comet, were thought to exercise their influence on monstrous births. Rueff mentions that in Sicily there happened a great eclipse of the sun, and that women immediately began to bring forth deformed and double-headed children.

Before ending these preliminary remarks, there might be mentioned the marine monsters, such as mermaids, sea-serpents, and the like, which from time to time have been reported; even at the present day there are people who devoutly believe that they have seen horrible and impossible demons in the sea. Pare describes and pictures a monster, at Rome, on November 3, 1520, with the upper portion of a child apparently about five or six years old, and the lower part and ears of a fish-like animal. He also pictures a sea-devil in the same chapter, together with other gruesome examples of the power of imagination.

Early Teratology.--Besides such cases as the foregoing, we find the medieval writers report likely instances of terata, as, for instance, Rhodiginus, who speaks of a monster in Italy with two heads and two bodies; Lycosthenes saw a double monster, both components of which slept at the same time; he also says this creature took its food and drink simultaneously in its two mouths. Even Saint Augustine says that he knew of a child born in the Orient who, from the belly up, was in all parts double.

The first evidences of a step toward cla.s.sification and definite reasoning in regard to the causation of monstrosities were evinced by Ambroise Pare in the sixteenth century, and though his ideas are crude and some of his phenomena impossible, yet many of his facts and arguments are worthy of consideration. Pare attributed the cause of anomalies of excess to an excessive quant.i.ty of s.e.m.e.n, and anomalies of default to deficiency of the same fluid. He has collected many instances of double terata from reliable sources, but has interspersed his collection with accounts of some hideous and impossible creatures, such as are ill.u.s.trated in the accompanying figure, which shows a creature that was born shortly after a battle of Louis XII, in 1512; it had the wings, crest, and lower extremity of a bird and a human head and trunk; besides, it was an hermaphrodite, and had an extra eye in the knee. Another ill.u.s.tration represents a monstrous head found in an egg, said to have been sent for examination to King Charles at Metz in 1569. It represented the face and visage of a man, with small living serpents taking the place of beard and hair. So credulous were people at this time that even a man so well informed as Pare believed in the possibility of these last two, or at least represented them as facts.

At this time were also reported double hermaphroditic terata, seemingly without latter-day a.n.a.logues. Rhodiginus speaks of a two-headed monster born in Ferrari, Italy, in 1540, well formed, and with two sets of genitals, one male and the other female. Pare gives a picture of twins, born near Heidelberg in 1486, which had double bodies joined back to back; one of the twins had the aspect of a female and the other of a male, though both had two sets of genitals.

Scientific Teratology.--About the first half of the eighteenth century what might be called the positive period of teratology begins.

Following the advent of this era come Mery, Duverney, Winslow, Lemery, and Littre. In their works true and concise descriptions are given and violent attacks are made against the ancient beliefs and prejudices.

From the beginning of the second half of the last century to the present time may be termed the scientific epoch of teratology. We can almost with a certainty start this era with the names of Haller, Morgagni, Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, and Meckel, who adduced the explanations asked for by Harvey and Wolff. From the appearance of the treatise by Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, teratology has made enormous strides, and is to-day well on the road to becoming a science. Hand in hand with embryology it has been the subject of much investigation in this century, and to enumerate the workers of the present day who have helped to bring about scientific progress would be a task of many pages. Even in the artificial production of monsters much has been done, and a glance at the work of Dareste well repays the trouble.

Essays on teratogenesis, with reference to batrachians, have been offered by Lombardini; and by Lereboullet and Knoch with reference to fishes. Foll and Warynski have reported their success in obtaining visceral inversion, and even this branch of the subject promises to become scientific.

Terata are seen in the lower animals and always excite interest. Pare gives the history of a sheep with three heads, born in 1577; the central head was larger than the other two, as shown in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration. Many of the Museums of Natural History contain evidences of animal terata. At Hallae is a two-headed mouse; the Conant Museum in Maine contains the skeleton of an adult sheep with two heads; there was an account of a two-headed pigeon published in France in 1734; Leidy found a two-headed snake in a field near Philadelphia; Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Conant both found similar creatures, and there is one in the Museum at Harvard; Wyman saw a living double-headed snake in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in 1853, and many parallel instances are on record.

Cla.s.sification.--We shall attempt no scientific discussion of the causation or embryologic derivation of the monster, contenting ourselves with simple history and description, adding any a.s.sociate facts of interest that may be suggested. For further information, the reader is referred to the authors cited or to any of the standard treatises on teratology.

Many cla.s.sifications of terata have been offered, and each possesses some advantage. The modern reader is referred to the modification of the grouping of Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire given by Hirst and Piersol, or those of Blanc and Guinard. For convenience, we have adopted the following cla.s.sification, which will include only those monsters that have LIVED AFTER BIRTH, and who have attracted general notice or attained some fame in their time, as attested by accounts in contemporary literature.

CLa.s.s 1.--Union of several fetuses. CLa.s.s 2.--Union of two distinct fetuses by a connecting band. CLa.s.s 3.--Union of two distinct fetuses by an osseous junction of the cranial bones. CLa.s.s 4.--Union of two distinct fetuses in which one or more parts are eliminated by the junction. CLa.s.s 5.--Fusion of two fetuses by a bony union of the ischii. CLa.s.s 6.--Fusion of two fetuses below the umbilicus into a common lower extremity. CLa.s.s 7.--Bicephalic monsters. CLa.s.s 8.--Parasitic monsters. CLa.s.s 9.--Monsters with a single body and double lower extremities. CLa.s.s 10.--Diphallic terata. CLa.s.s 11.--Fetus in fetu, and dermoid cysts. CLa.s.s 12.--Hermaphrodites.

CLa.s.s I.--Triple Monsters.--Haller and Meckel were of the opinion that no cases of triple monsters worthy of credence are on record, and since their time this has been the popular opinion. Surely none have ever lived. Licetus describes a human monster with two feet and seven heads and as many arms. Bartholinus speaks of a three-headed monster who after birth gave vent to horrible cries and expired. Borellus speaks of a three-headed dog, a veritable Cerberus. Blasius published an essay on triple monsters in 1677. Bordenave is quoted as mentioning a human monster formed of three fetuses, but his description proves clearly that it was only the union of two. Probably the best example of this anomaly that we have was described by Galvagni at Cattania in 1834.

This monster had two necks, on one of which was a single head normal in dimensions. On the other neck were two heads, as seen in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire mentions several cases, and Martin de Pedro publishes a description of a case in Madrid in 1879. There are also on record some cases of triple monster by inclusion which will be spoken of later. Instances in the lower animals have been seen, the three-headed sheep of Pare, already spoken of, being one.

CLa.s.s II.--Double Monsters.--A curious mode of junction, probably the most interesting, as it admits of longer life in these monstrosities, is that of a simple cartilaginous band extending between two absolutely distinct and different individuals. The band is generally in the sternal region. In 1752 there was described a remarkable monstrosity which consisted of conjoined twins, a perfect and an imperfect child, connected at their ensiform cartilages by a band 4 inches in circ.u.mference. The Hindoo sisters, described by Dr. Andrew Berry, lived to be seven years old; they stood face to face, with their chests 6 1/2 inches and their p.u.b.es 8 1/2 inches apart. Mitch.e.l.l describes the full-grown female twins, born at Newport, Ky., called the Newport twins. The woman who gave birth to them became impregnated, it is said, immediately after seeing the famous Siamese twins, and the products of this pregnancy took the conformation of those celebrated exhibitionists.

Perhaps the best known of all double monsters were the Siamese twins.

They were exhibited all over the globe and had the additional benefit and advertis.e.m.e.nt of a much mooted discussion as to the advisability of their severance, in which opinions of the leading medical men of all nations were advanced. The literature on these famous brothers is simply stupendous. The amount of material in the Surgeon General's library at Washington would surprise an investigator. A curious volume in this library is a book containing clippings, advertis.e.m.e.nts, and divers portraits of the twins. It will be impossible to speak at all fully on this subject, but a short history and running review of their lives will be given: Eng and Chang were born in Siam about May, 1811.

Their father was of Chinese extraction and had gone to Siam and there married a woman whose father was also a Chinaman. Hence, for the most part, they were of Chinese blood, which probably accounted for their dark color and Chinese features. Their mother was about thirty-five years old at the time of their birth and had borne 4 female children prior to Chang and Eng. She afterward had twins several times, having eventually 14 children in all. She gave no history of special significance of the pregnancy, although she averred that the head of one and the feet of the other were born at the same time. The twins were both feeble at birth, and Eng continued delicate, while Chang thrived. It was only with difficulty that their lives were saved, as Chowpahyi, the reigning king, had a superst.i.tion that such freaks of nature always presaged evil to the country. They were really discovered by Robert Hunter, a British merchant at Bangkok, who in 1824 saw them boating and stripped to the waist. He prevailed on the parents and King Chowpahyi to allow them to go away for exhibition. They were first taken out of the country by a certain Captain Coffin. The first scientific description of them was given by Professor J. C. Warren, who examined them in Boston, at the Harvard University, in 1829. At that time Eng was 5 feet 2 inches and Chang 5 feet 1 1/2 inches in height.

They presented all the characteristics of Chinamen and wore long black queues coiled thrice around their heads, as shown by the accompanying ill.u.s.tration. After an eight-weeks' tour over the Eastern States they went to London, arriving at that port November 20, 1829. Their tour in France was forbidden on the same grounds as the objection to the exhibition of Ritta-Christina, namely, the possibility of causing the production of monsters by maternal impressions in pregnant women. After their European tour they returned to the United States and settled down as farmers in North Carolina, adopting the name of Bunker. When forty-four years of age they married two sisters, English women, twenty-six and twenty-eight years of age, respectively. Domestic infelicity soon compelled them to keep the wives at different houses, and they alternated weeks in visiting each wife. Chang had six children and Eng five, all healthy and strong. In 1869 they made another trip to Europe, ostensibly to consult the most celebrated surgeons of Great Britain and France on the advisability of being separated. It was stated that a feeling of antagonistic hatred after a quarrel prompted them to seek "surgical separation," but the real cause was most likely to replenish their depleted exchequer by renewed exhibition and advertis.e.m.e.nt.

A most pathetic characteristic of these ill.u.s.trious brothers was the affection and forbearance they showed for each other until shortly before their death. They bore each other's trials and petty maladies with the greatest sympathy, and in this manner rendered their lives far more agreeable than a casual observer would suppose possible. They both became Christians and members or attendants of the Baptist Church.

Figure 31 is a representation of the Siamese twins in old age. On each side of them is a son. The original photograph is in the Mutter Museum, College of Physicians, Philadelphia.

The feasibility of the operation of separating them was discussed by many of the leading men of America, and Thompson, Fergusson, Syme, Sir J. Y. Simpson, Nelaton, and many others in Europe, with various reports and opinions after examination. These opinions can be seen in full in nearly any large medical library. At this time they had diseased and atheromatous arteries, and Chang, who was quite intemperate, had marked spinal curvature, and shortly afterward became hemiplegic. They were both partially blind in their two anterior eyes, possibly from looking outward and obliquely. The point of junction was about the sterno-siphoid angle, a cartilaginous band extending from sternum to sternum. In 1869 Simpson measured this band and made the distance on the superior aspect from sternum to sternum 4 1/2 inches, though it is most likely that during the early period of exhibition it was not over 3 inches. The ill.u.s.tration shows very well the position of the joining band.

The twins died on January 17, 1874, and a committee of surgeons from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, consisting of Doctors Andrews, Allen, and Pancoast, went to North Carolina to perform an autopsy on the body, and, if possible, to secure it. They made a long and most interesting report on the results of their trip to the College. The arteries, as was antic.i.p.ated, were found to have undergone calcareous degeneration. There was an hepatic connection through the band, and also some interlacing diaphragmatic fibers therein. There was slight vascular intercommunication of the livers and independence of the two peritoneal cavities and the intestines. The band itself was chiefly a coalescence of the xyphoid cartilages, surrounded by areolar tissue and skin.

The "Orissa sisters," or Radica-Doddica, shown in Europe in 1893, were similar to the Siamese twins in conformation. They were born in Orissa, India, September, 1889, and were the result of the sixth pregnancy, the other five being normal. They were healthy girls, four years of age, and apparently perfect in every respect, except that, from the ensiform cartilage to the umbilicus, they were united by a band 4 inches long and 2 inches wide. The children when facing each other could draw their chests three or four inches apart, and the band was so flexible that they could sit on either side of the body. Up to the date mentioned it was not known whether the connecting band contained viscera. A portrait of these twins was shown at the World's Fair in Chicago.

In the village of Arasoor, district of Bhavany, there was reported a monstrosity in the form of two female children, one 34 inches and the other 33 3/4 inches high, connected by the sternum. They were said to have had small-pox and to have recovered. They seemed to have had individual nervous systems, as when one was pinched the other did not feel it, and while one slept the other was awake. There must have been some vascular connection, as medicine given to one affected both.

Fig. 36 shows a mode of cartilaginous junction by which each component of a double monster may be virtually independent.

Operations on Conjoined Twins.--Swingler speaks of two girls joined at the xiphoid cartilage and the umbilicus, the band of union being 1 1/2 inches thick, and running below the middle of it was the umbilical cord, common to both. They first ligated the cord, which fell off in nine days, and then separated the twins with the bistoury. They each made early recovery and lived.

In the Ephemerides of 1690 Konig gives a description of two Swiss sisters born in 1689 and united belly to belly, who were separated by means of a ligature and the operation afterward completed by an instrument. The constricting band was formed by a coalition of the xiphoid cartilages and the umbilical vessels, surrounded by areolar tissue and covered with skin. Le Beau says that under the Roman reign, A. D. 945, two male children were brought from Armenia to Constantinople for exhibition. They were well formed in every respect and united by their abdomens. After they had been for some time an object of great curiosity, they were removed by governmental order, being considered a presage of evil. They returned, however, at the commencement of the reign of Constantine VII, when one of them took sick and died. The surgeons undertook to preserve the other by separating him from the corpse of his brother, but he died on the third day after the operation.

In 1866 Boehm gives an account of Guzenhausen's case of twins who were united sternum to sternum. An operation for separation was performed without accident, but one of the children, already very feeble, died three days after; the other survived. The last attempt at an operation like this was in 1881, when Biaudet and Buginon attempted to separate conjoined sisters (Marie-Adele) born in Switzerland on June 26th.

Unhappily, they were very feeble and life was despaired of when the operation was performed, on October 29th. Adele died six hours afterward, and Marie died of peritonitis on the next day.

CLa.s.s III.--Those monsters joined by a fusion of some of the cranial bones are sometimes called craniopagi. A very ancient observation of this kind is cited by Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire. These two girls were born in 1495, and lived to be ten years old. They were normal in every respect, except that they were joined at the forehead, causing them to stand face to face and belly to belly. When one walked forward, the other was compelled to walk backward; their noses almost touched, and their eyes were directed laterally. At the death of one an attempt to separate the other from the cadaver was made, but it was unsuccessful, the second soon dying; the operation necessitated opening the cranium and parting the meninges. Bateman said that in 1501 there was living an instance of double female twins, joined at the forehead. This case was said to have been caused in the following manner: Two women, one of whom was pregnant with the twins at the time, were engaged in an earnest conversation, when a third, coming up behind them, knocked their heads together with a sharp blow. Bateman describes the death of one of the twins and its excision from the other, who died subsequently, evidently of septic infection. There is a possibility that this is merely a duplication of the account of the preceding case with a slight anachronism as to the time of death.

At a foundling hospital in St. Petersburg there were born two living girls, in good health, joined by the heads. They were so united that the nose of one, if prolonged, would strike the ear of the other; they had perfectly independent existences, but their vascular systems had evident connection.

Through extra mobility of their necks they could really lie in a straight line, one sleeping on the side and the other on the back.

There is a report a of two girls joined at their vertices, who survived their birth. With the exception of this junction they were well formed and independent in existence. There was no communication of the cranial cavities, but simply fusion of the cranial bones covered by superficial fascia and skin. Daubenton has seen a case of union at the occiput, but further details are not quoted.

CLa.s.s IV.--The next cla.s.s to be considered is that in which the individuals are separate and well formed, except that the point of fusion is a common part, eliminating their individual components in this location. The pygopagous twins belong in this section. According to Bateman, twins were born in 1493 at Rome joined back to back, and survived their birth. The same authority speaks of a female child who was born with "2 bellies, 4 arms, 4 legs, 2 heads, and 2 sets of privates, and was exhibited throughout Italy for gain's sake." The "Biddenden Maids" were born in Biddenden, Kent, in 1100. Their names were Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, and their parents were fairly well-to-do people. They were supposed to have been united at the hips and the shoulders, and lived until 1134. At the death of one it was proposed to separate them, but the remaining sister refused, saying, "As we came together, we will also go together," and, after about six hours of this Mezentian existence, they died. They bequeathed to the church-wardens of the parish and their successors land to the extent of 20 acres, at the present time bringing a rental of about $155.00 annually, with the instructions that the money was to be spent in the distribution of cakes (bearing the impression of their images, to be given away on each Easter Sunday to all strangers in Biddenden) and also 270 quartern loaves, with cheese in proportion, to all the poor in said parish. Ballantyne has accompanied his description of these sisters by ill.u.s.trations, one of which shows the cake. Heaton gives a very good description of these maids; and a writer in "Notes and Queries" of March 27, 1875, gives the following information relative to the bequest:--

"On Easter Monday, at Biddenden, near Staplehurst, Kent, there is a distribution, according to ancient custom, of 'Biddenden Maids' cakes,'

with bread and cheese, the cost of which is defrayed from the proceeds of some 20 acres of land, now yielding L35 per annum. and known as the 'Bread and Cheese Lands.' About the year 1100 there lived Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst, who were joined together after the manner of the Siamese twins, and who lived for thirty-four years, one dying, and then being followed by her sister within six hours. They left by their will the lands above alluded to and their memory is perpetuated by imprinting on the cakes their effigies 'in their habit as they lived.'