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 corpse of his brother, but he died on the third day after the
operation.
In 1866 Boehm gives an account of Guzenhausen's case of twins who
were united sternum to sternum. An operation for separation was
performed without accident, but one of the children, already very
feeble, died three days after; the other survived. The last
attempt at an operation like this was in 1881, when Biaudet and
Buginon attempted to separate conjoined sisters (Marie-Adele)
born in Switzerland on June 26th. Unhappily, they were very
feeble and life was despaired of when the operation was
performed, on October 29th.
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