t of the sixth pregnancy, the
other five being normal. They were healthy girls, four years of age,
and apparently perfect in every respect, except that, from the ensiform
cartilage to the umbilicus, they were united by a band 4 inches long
and 2 inches wide. The children when facing each other could draw their
chests three or four inches apart, and the band was so flexible that
they could sit on either side of the body. Up to the date mentioned it
was not known whether the connecting band contained viscera. A portrait
of these twins was shown at the World's Fair in Chicago.

In the village of Arasoor, district of Bhavany, there was reported a
monstrosity in the form of two female children, one 34 inches and the
other 33 3/4 inches high, connected by the sternum. They were said to
have had small-pox and to have recovered. They seemed to have had
individual nervous systems, as when one was pinched the other did not
feel it, and while one slept the other was awake. There must have been
some vascular connection, as medicine given to one affected both.

Fig. 36 shows a mode of cartilaginous junction by which each component
of a double monster may be virtually independent.

Operations on Conjoined Twins.--Swingler speaks of two girls joined at
the xiphoid cartilage and the umbilicus, the band of union being 1 1/2
inches thick, and running below the middle of it was the umbilical
cord, common to both. They first ligated the cord, which fell off in
nine days, and then separated the twins with the bistoury. They each
made early recovery and lived.

In the Ephemerides of 1690 Konig gives a description of two Swiss
sisters born in 1689 and united belly to belly, who were separated by
means of a ligature and the operation afterward completed by an
instrument. The constricting band was formed by a coalition of the
xiphoid cartilages and the umbilical vessels, surrounded by areolar
tissue and covered with skin. Le Beau says that under the Roman reign,
A. D. 945, two male children were brought from Armenia to
Constantinople for exhibition. They were well formed in every respect
and united by their abdomens. After they had been for some time an
object of great curiosity, they were removed by governmental order,
being considered a presage of evil. They returned, however, at the
commencement of the reign of Constantine VII, when one of them took
sick and died. The surgeons undertook to preserve the other by
separating him from the co