REMARKABLE TWINS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 60, 10 March 1880, Page 4

REMARKABLE TWINS

Tbere is at present in Bombay a living object that may rightty be classed nmong the most curious phenomena of nature. At a house in Mazagon may be seen a pair of female twins, separate in every respect but from the breast bone to the lower part of the abdomen, which is closely joined. The upper breast bone of each infant is linked into the other, the outer skm covering both trunks. The twins are joined front to front ; shoulders, arms, lower limbs and feet perfectly formed, development healthy, while the heads are well shaped and the faces really pretty, with beautiful eyes, large and bright. Tbe twins are six months and twenty days old, are in perfect health, and measure twenty inches in height, one appearing — but in a very trifling degree — larger than the other. Both have vigorous appetites and take kindly to . the feeding bottle, are extremely lively, and appear good tempered. The pulses beat in unison, they generally fall asleep or beep awake together, and their actions are unusually simultaneous, though sometimes one would cry while the other was quietly drawing at the mouthpiece of its bottle. The strangely united pair were born in Dapooli, in the Rutnagberry Collectorate, the father being a Mahommedan and a seafaring man, while the mother has, besides, a pretty little daughter of about ten. According to the former's account he called in a native doctor at Rutnagberry, whose opinion was that there was a connection internally between the abdomens, so that whatever sustenance the one took, a portion passed to the other. However that may bel the infants feed separately, each having a bottle to itself* and drew vigorously at. their nourishment; . This same doctor also declared that it would be impossible to separate them without extinguishing life; The twins have, up to the prosent time, never been ill, and to every appearance are likely to grow