In 1790 a surgeon known as Everard Home wrote a series of medical articles about an extremely rare medical condition, which he was certain had never been recorded before. Of course, we now know he was writing about a two-headed boy that he had found in Bengal. His medical journals contain sketches and drawings, along with the reviews of several of his peers. To this day no doctor has been able to find any cases similar, generally speaking, people with this type of medical condition do not live very long.
Born in the village of Mundul Gait of Bengal in 1783, the Two-Headed Boy grew up in extreme poverty. His life was nearly ended immediately upon birth when the midwife screamed in terror and tried to throw him into a fire. Though he was badly burnt, he somehow survived this initial ordeal of birth and his parents welcomed him into the family. They started to exhibit him in Calcutta where he started to earn the family quite a bit of money. This is where whispers and accounts started to transverse the medical world of this boy that had two heads.
It led to large crowds gathering, which forced the family to cover him with a sheet and keep him hidden. As his fame spread, so did the stature of the people wanting to view him: noblemen, city officials, and civil servants were all clamoring to book him for a home visit. They wanted him there at their galas and parties. This is how accounts finally reached a surgeon: Doctor Everard Home.
Despite all this attention none of it had ever been medical, amazingly the boy seemed to never suffer any side or ill effects of the condition. Unfortunately at the age of four years old, he was bitten by a cobra snake and died of the poison. The East Indian Company robbed the grave and dissected the boy, eventually, this led to the skull being on display at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London.
Today we know that technically this would be a case of parasitic twins, known as craniopagus parasiticus which is an extremely rare condition. There are only two other recorded cases known, Rebeca Martinez in 2003 and Manar Maged in 2005; who both died very young.
