“SIAMESE” TWINS BORN IN LONDON.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 November 1927, Page 4

“SIAMESE” TWINS BORN IN LONDON.

LONDON. Sept. d. Tu a cot in lino of the children’s , wards at St. Thomas’s Hospital, Loudon, are lying, face to face, most rer markable twins—both girls. [ They are joined from the middle of r the chest almost to the lowest part of the abdomen, and they have been taken , to the hospital for observation. They’ i were born on Friday night. r Their names are Alary and Ann. and they are the children of Afr and Airs j Charles Edward Cl lurch, living at I’enI body buildings, Ebury-bridge, Pimlico, S.AY. Air ami Airs Church have one other child, a girl aged t. The need for having the twins tinder special observation was recognised, when it was found that Ann was not : so healthy as her sister. ■' The surgeons at St. Thomas’s have considered the possibility, in the event of her death, of saving the life of . Alary, hilt yesterday Ann begun to rally. One of the surgeons said yesterday that both twins are suffering from eongenital heart disease and that the shock to the system if an operation for j shock to the system of the survivor separation were performed. Both babies in essentials have a separate cxitence. their hearts do not heat together. But they are so much alike that they have been distinguished

liy different coloured ribbons. Mary wears pink and Ann blue. Sept. 8. After four days of life the little twin Lcirls. Ann and Mary Church. died at St. Thomas’s Hospital yesterday. One died at 6.30 a.m. and the other two minutes later. At' the wish of the parents, an engineer's fitter and his wife, no ]iostmortem examination is contemplated. The death was from natural causes, a Daily Mail reporter was informed at the hospital. The children, who together weighed BJlb. at birth, wore horn prematurely and had a weak circulation. hut their bodies and limbs were normal and perfectly formed. They appeared each to have a complete skeleton, with separate hearts and lungs. Whether this individuality extended throughout the body could not he ascertained definitely in spite of an exhaustive X-ray examination. The greater part of the chests and abdomens were fused together, the fusion being more than skin deep, but to I what dentil it extended could he revealed only by a post-mortem examination. The consequence of this fusion was that if the children lived they could never sit down, and in walking one j would have to walk backwards.