A FREAK OF NATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 583, 2 May 1876, Page 3

A FREAK OF NATURE.

The San Francisco Monitor says :—" The Eastern papers record a freak of nature that outrivals the Siamese twins. The strange freak is in the shape of a double child, or more strictly speaking, two children joined together. The curiosity is the offspring of coloured parents, Ciittendon and Sarah Jones, of Beach Island, South Carolina. The one child is a perfectly developed female, large of her age, and with every appearance of health. The other, who is a male, is but imperfectly developed, has only the rudiments of limbs, and does not eat, depending for sustenance on his sister. The two beings are joined together by a wide band, in the centre of which one of the lungs of the strange creature seems to be located. Touch the male and the female will shrink; pinch it and she will cry. Reverse the operation, and still it is the female who manifests sensibility. The head of the female is misshapen, the ears presenting more the appearance of an animal's than a human being's. The pulsation af the heart and respiration can be plainly seen in the ligament joining the bodies. The ligament, if such it can be called, is joined to the girl at the end of the breast bone, and to the male lower down. It is broad and thick, covered with skin like the rest of the body. Whether there are two distinct sets of vital organs, or whether both are dependent on one, has not yet been determined. The latter opinion seems to prevail, however. It is appareut, at any rate, that the male receives nourishment through his companion. A well-known physician examined the twins, and pronounced them to be the most wonderful natural phenomenon of the kind in the world."