o 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 ha