"If it be granted that the Biddenden Maids were pygopagous twins,
a study of the histories of other recorded cases of this
monstrosity serves to demonstrate many common characters. Thus,
of the 8 cases which Taruffi has collected, in 7 the twins were
female; and if to these we add the sisters Rosalie and Josepha
Blazek and the Maids, we have 10 cases, of which 9 were girls.
Again, several of the pygopagous twins, of whom there are
scientific records, survived birth and lived for a number of
years, and thus resembled the Biddenden terata. Helen and Judith,
for instance, were twenty-three years old at death; and the North
Carolina twins, although born in 1851, are still alive. There is,
therefore, nothing inherently improbable in the statement that
the Biddenden Maids lived for thirty-four years. With regard also
to the truth of the record that the one Maid survived her sister
for six hours, there is confirmatory evidence from scientifically
observed instances, for Joly and Peyrat (Bull. de l'Acad. Med.,
iii., pp. 51 and 383, 1874) state that in the case seen by them
the one infant lived ten hours after the death of the other. It
is impossible to make any statement with regard to the internal
structure of the Maids or to the characters of their genital
organs, for there is absolutely no information forthcoming upon
these points.
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