The account relates how one of them died, and the
survivor bore her dead sister about for three years before she
was overcome by the oppression and stench of the cadaver. Batemen
describes the birth of a boy in 1529, who had two heads, four
ears, four arms, but only two thighs and two legs. Buchanan
speaks at length of the famous "Scottish Brothers," who were the
cynosure of the eyes of the Court of James III of Scotland. This
monster consisted of two men, ordinary in appearance in the
superior extremities, whose trunks fused into a single lower
extremity. The King took diligent care of their education, and
they became proficient in music, languages, and other court
accomplishments. Between them they would carry on animated
conversations, sometimes merging into curious debates, followed
by blows. Above the point of union they had no synchronous
sensations, while below, sensation was common to both. This
monster lived twenty-eight years, surviving the royal patron, who
died June, 1488. One of the brothers died some days before the
other, and the survivor, after carrying about his dead brother,
succumbed to "infection from putrescence." There was reported to
have been born in Switzerland a double headed male monster, who
in 1538, at the age of thirty, was possessed of a beard on each
face, the two bodies fused at the umbilicus into a single lower
extremity.
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