Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Conjoined Twins

Episode Date: August 21, 2015

This week on Sawbones, Justin and Dr. Sydnee explore the strange, sad and even occassionally lovely history of conjoined twins. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! I'm Sydney Macri. I hear both fairs.

I hear both fairs. I hear both fairs. I hear both fairs. I hear both very snifflies Yes, that's true. I'm sorry about that in advance everyone listening. It's it's allergy season Here probably lots of other places too But that's what other places that it is summer Transitionally transitioning into fall. Sid, I just got back from New York, I missed you.

I missed you too, honey. I hate when you leave. Me too, I'm glad to be back. I wish there was some way that I could, you know, travel less, but you know, business, lady business calls, as they say. Wait, lady business calls? Lady business, well, no, not like, no, like lady justice, as they say. Wait, Lady Business Calls? Lady Business, well, no, not like,

no, like Lady Justice, but Lady Business. Oh, okay. I thought you were saying Lady Business. But Lady Business. They are offended on multiple levels by that statement. No, like, you know, business. The lady that is business has called. The years of industry.

Okay. Some of me. Well, you know, if you wanted to travel less, like, there is one way. What's that? I mean, we could have been born, can join twins. Okay. Yes, that would...

Then we'd never be apart. That would solve the travel issue. It would create... I guess you could say some other white complication. But wouldn't it be nice? We'd always be together. You'd always be right next to me. You could come some other white complications. But wouldn't it be nice? We'd always be together. You'd always be right next to me. You could come with me to work.

We'd be related. That would be fun. We'd be related. Well, that's true. Yeah, I mean, that's what you're, that's gonna be your hitch every time. That would be a bit of a problem. And depending on how we were connected,

it could make kissing difficult. Mm-hmm. Well, I don't wanna, I don't wanna live that way, because we're married, and that would be odd if we were also conjoined twins. I don't think that's done simply. But I'll just handcuff us together later.

But honestly, Sid, if I'm going to be honest, I don't know that much about conjoined twins. You know, Justin, I think that's true for a lot of people, because we have had quite a few requests to talk about conjoined twins. From who? Well, from listeners. Would you like me to name a few?

Name them. So thank you to Noah and Caitlin and Sarah and Nicholas and Joleen and Diane and Angel and Michelle. Thank you. Now we're doing it. Thank you. We're going to talk about conjoined twins. Okay, tell me back to the beginning of conjoined twins. Let. It's a back off. We're gonna talk about enjoying twins. Okay, tell me back to the beginning of enjoying twins.

Let me understand from a base level. Pretend I'm a simple man with a limited understanding of science. That won't be hard. But dumb. Shh. You, I've been waiting for that setup since, how long have we been doing this show? So, can join twins, said. We're ready when you are.

So let's- Let the audience is starting to get a little bored and they do, I get to just tear into it. Let's talk about twinning, the concept of twins. Do you know why there are twins? Like why are two people twins? How does that happen? I have, there are two different ways.

Okay, go ahead. One is to, sorry for the adult language, but one way is two spurmies getting to the same egg. And two spurmies getting to the same egg? Two spurmies getting the same egg, okay? So that's one issue. The other is when two separate eggs simultaneously get impregnated by two separate eggs simultaneously get impregnated

by two separate spurmies at the same exact millisecond, that's how you get fraternal twins. Okay, if anyone... And if it's the third way where the egg after being fertilized and thus making it a zygote splits. Okay, I don't know where you came up with that first way. I think it goes from what who's talking? Oh, okay. That's not a thing, but you were right with the other two.

Nice. So, so you're right. So there are two types of twins. There are fraternal twins and identical twins. And fraternal twins are, yes, like you said, when there are two different eggs and two different sperm and they just all happened to, you know, form at the same time. So you get two babies. Yeah. So they grow in the uterus together, but they aren't necessary, they aren't the exact same, you know, genetic material. Right. Two different sperm, two different eggs. So that that's why fraternal twins don't look identical. Got it. And why you can have male, female fraternal twins.

Okay, that'll make sense. Now, if you have one egg that is fertilized by one sperm, which as you said, then divides, it can become identical twins. Okay, so if I had to guess, and I'm going on a limb here, are conjoined twins when the egg doesn't separate, like, cleanly or all the way?

It's exactly, it's when it doesn't, it doesn't completely divide. And depending on how far into the process, it doesn't completely divide. So I mean, if it divides right away, you get identical twins. If it starts to divide later, and then later and later you get more,

a more degree of conjoinedness. Conjoinery. Conjoinery? You know what I'm saying? Like they get, they're more closely conjoinedness. Conjoinery. Conjoinery? You know what I'm saying? Like they get, they're more closely conjoined. Right. The further the process, it doesn't divide. Right, I gotcha.

So, and so then, since you get conjoined twins, and of course, there are different types of conjoined twins depending on how they are joined together. Okay. So, for instance, and we kind of classify them based on the location in their body where the connection is. Does that make sense? Whether it's their head or their upper body or their lower body. So there's thoracopagus, which are joined at the sternum and they tend to share a heart.

So they're joined at the top part of their body. And that's about like 40% of them join twins. There's onflow pagus and they're joined at the like the waist and can be all the way up to the chest, but it's usually like the center, like their stomach area. And they can share a part of their GI track, part of their GI track, usually not there the hard, sometimes usually not. And that's about 33%. There's pio pagus that are

joined either like down at the waist at the sacrum or even can be like back to back, like butt to butt. Oh, okay. Can be joined that way. There's some twins join that way. And then the rarest or craniopegas which are joined at the head,

and you may have seen twins like that before. Yeah, I think but only like an incrued, crude illustrations, that sort of thing. Right, and that we have seen some twins like that that they're joined. And they may or may not share some part of their brain. They may have two separate brains or they may share brain tissue, they may only have one. It just depends.

And there are lots of other variations on these. These are kind of the major types of conjoined twins. And of course, depending on how you're joined, that's going to be a big part of one if you can be separated and two, how much it's going to impact your quality of life and your health. To join twins are rare. They occur about once every 200,000 live births

and the survival rate of conjoined twins, like two births is really only about five to 25%. It's fairly low just because it creates a lot of problems in you to grow Female conjoined twins seem to fare better for whatever reason because you are three times as likely to be born alive If your female conjoined twins is opposed to male so there are a lot more female conjoined twins 70% our female That's wild. Well, we have no idea why. No, I don't know why, but for whatever reason, most conjoined twins are female.

And we have evidence that in this makes sense, like, why would this be a new thing, right? Why would people have all the sudden started having identical twins or having conjoined twins? Well, I know that we've seen some changes in the twins statistics thanks to fertilization drugs and things like that. That's true. And I guess it's fair to say that as the rate of identical twins rises,

you would expect the rate of conjoined twins to rise. But it's something that happens randomly anyway. So we've had conjoined twins certainly for as long as we've been having twins. Can I ask a question? Maybe at all. That you'll probably have to just like hypothesis about, why don't we not have a better number than five to 25% survive?

That's like a fairly big range with something that's pretty easy to quantify. I mean, it's fairly binary. I think we're just talking about, I mean, one, we're talking about the rate of survival to birth. Does that mean, so we're factoring it, this is really a rate of miscarriage.

Or not miscarriage. So it's harder to quantify and not, it's not always reported. Just we don't always have the insight into. Exactly, exactly. So that number's a little harder. By the way, one of the quick question, you talk about where their join depends on

where it was in the fertilization process. Are we talking like minutes, days, weeks, like? Yeah, like days and hours and days and hours to days. Yeah, the very, very beginning of the fertilization process like egg and spar meat and then the instant divisions that take place really dictate if this is going to happen or not. Okay. And most of the time it doesn't, but then everyone's going to want to let us. We have found statues and sculptures that depict conjoined twins, what we think are, you know, a depiction of twins that were born conjoined twins, what we think are a depiction of twins that

were born conjoined from 3,000 years ago. So obviously, why would it have not been happening? In the 16th century, a famous French surgeon whom we've spoken of before, Ambroix Perre. That sounds familiar. He wrote a lot about Conjoined Twins. He actually was the reason we have all these different names and categories for Conjoined Twins based on how they are joined. And he thought a lot about it to try to figure out like why does this happen?

Why are there people who are conjoined? But the theories were pretty typical, I would say, for 16th century reasoning. Maybe it's because the parents made God angry. Maybe it's just God's way of showing how powerful he is. Or maybe it has nothing to do with God. Maybe it's the devil. Or maybe it has nothing to do with God or the devil. Maybe it's mom's fault because she saw something

that was shocking when she was pregnant. And as a result, this is what happened with her pregnancy. Yeah. He had some physiological thoughts, shocking when she was pregnant and as a result, this is what happened with her pregnancy. Yeah. He had some physiological thoughts, like maybe it has to do with a womb that's too small, you know, so they don't have room to separate. Maybe your clothes are too tight,

or maybe you sat wrong while you were pregnant. Yeah, I'm not that one. That's a terrifying thing, by the way. If that's your theory and you're telling pregnant women that having been a pregnant woman, and I mean, I'm fairly knowledgeable about pregnancy from a very, you know, scientific perspective, because of my chosen trade.

If someone had looked at me and said, by the way, you might sit wrong while you're pregnant and cause problems for your baby, how terrifying? It's terrible. Yeah, you may. How terrifying. It's terrible. Yeah, you may just sit wrong. It's brutal. I would never sit.

Just don't sit. I would stand all the time. Just stand or sleep. Just don't sit. Now, of course none of these reasoneeling are fine. That's fine. Crouching, squatting. But no sitting.

No sitting. Because you might sit wrong. I don't even know what he, I don't even, he didn't write like how. I should have fun in a detail. I should have fun in a detail. How do you sit wrong? If it was that possible, he should have like, detailed that't even, he didn't write like, how on how do you sit wrong? If it was that possible, he should have like,

detailed that a little bit better. Yeah, in what way is that, how do you sit right? That's, I, now I'm questioning everything. Because I, I will tell you that I'm on my, I'm on my feet a lot. So I typically feel that any sitting is right. You're right.

If I'm sitting, it feels so right. Mm-hmm. But, um, obviously none of these, none of these, no, I'm so right. Sure, it's not, I mean none of it's none of these things are right. Sure, I mean none of it's real, so. Now in general, if you were born as one of a pair of conjoined twins hundreds of years ago, it probably wasn't a good thing for you.

It was usually seen as the result of either mom did something bad or it was some sort of evil omen. And so unfortunately, we don't have a lot of stories about what happened to conjoined twins, you know, because they were kind of abandoned. As time went on, we start to hear some more interesting stories about the lives of different different pairs of conjoined twins because they did survive and their lives were always notable because It was a unique experience and so a lot of people talked about it and wrote about it and shared that so

The first that we that we have some sparse records of our pair of twins from the 10th century We actually don't know even know their names. We know that they were born in Armenia They traveled to Constantinople and they were like friends with the Royal Court there, which I think is why we have such a great record that there was this pair of conjoined twins that existed at the time. The reason that this is mentioned is that one of the twins died and so they tried to do surgery to separate them at that point. No one would have attempted that before,

because- Well, sure, right, obviously. Yeah, surgery at the, any surgery at the time was a death sentence, right? We didn't have anesthesia, we didn't know how to control blood loss, we didn't have antibiotics, we didn't know anything. So any century was a bad news.

If you didn't have to do it, you wouldn't do it. But when one twin died, they had to. And so they attempted to separate them. And the other twin actually survived three days, which for the still that's that's a terrible three days like it is. But for the 10th century, that's quite an accomplishment that the surgeon was able to do that. Yeah. Okay. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah, okay. The oldest known conjoined twins that we actually have names for and know a little bit more about their story were from 1100 in Biddenon, county of Kent, England.

They were in a Mary and Eliza chill curse. And they were Pyopagus twins. So they were probably joined down lower at their sacrum, maybe even like kind of like a describe butt to butt, like the lower part of their pelvis. Where are your tail used to be? Yes. Well, sort of. You're at that's your coccyx.

Got it. But you're, think about your pelvis. At some part of their pelvis. Got it. I'm into it. So from descriptions and depictions, that's probably where they're joined. There were some other drawings that you can find of them where it looks like they're also joined at the shoulder as well as down at the hip. That's highly unlikely. Um, that just

usually isn't the way it works. So that was probably just a kind of a fanciful drawing. That's weird that you needed to look make, make a pair of conjoined twins look like Did they make a pair of conjoined twins look like more unique, like more, like real, like it was like, oh, this is boring, everybody's seen this, like what are you talking about? It's like, it's already so rare. You don't need to like spice it up with your artistic license, dude.

No, it's an interesting enough story alone. Yeah, that's wild. They live their lives connected because it was thought at the time that surgery was impossible and they I think that they Actually grew to to be okay with that to enjoy each other's company because when Eventually one twin did pass away as she got older the other twin was offered surgery to attempt to save her life because they knew it would be fatal for her

and she refused and said we came into this world together and and that's how we will leave. Oh, it's beautiful. What's beautiful about this story because I know that sad but they were very wealthy and they donated their money as well as 20 acres of land to the local church. And to this day to commemorate them every Easter Sunday, the church hands out free cakes and biscuits and things with the images of the what are now known as the Biddenon Mades to the locals. So that's nice.

So their gifts and contributions and charity is, you contributions and charity is commemorated to this very day. So it's kind of a nice, nice end of that story. That is nice. Well. But there is an even more famous set of conjoined twins that I want to tell you about. Tell me, said him ready. I'm raced. But before I do that.

Oh, I should have seen this coming. Why don't we head to the billing department? Let's go! Hi, I'm Allegro Ringo, a dog owner, and I am Renee Colbert, a dog water. And together we're the hosts of Can I Pet Your Dog, a podcast for unapologetic dog lovers. So let's talk about this. What are you getting yourself into? What is this podcast about? Well, we have dog news, dog experts, and interviews with special guests about their dogs. We also talk about dogs that we met this week. Join us every Tuesday on maximumfund.org for new episodes of Can I Pat Your Dog?

Okay, Sid. tell me about the really super duper famous Conjoin Twins. The most famous Conjoin Twins, if you've heard of Conjoin Twins, are probably Cheg and Ang Bunker, who I asked you if you'd heard of and you said no. Nope. How is that possible? I live a sheltered life. I don't know. I read mostly the internet.

I don't know. Well, these guys are all over the internet. They were originally They got like Twitter handles and everything. They got a nice face. I mean if you if you can't follow their Spotify playlist Google them you will find lots of it. I got a tumbler. I got three tumblers. Tell me they're all over the internet. I'm the internet I would argue that they are they are maybe more famous than Justin McRoy. Okay, possibly in their day. Now how many followers they have on Twitter? None.

All right, tell us about Chang and Ing bunker. So they were originally from Siam. And this is actually where we get the term that we no longer use, Siamese twins. Right. From Chang and Ing bunker, because they were from Siam. And when they eventually, as I will tell you about, started touring with different groups

to kind of showcase themselves to make money, they were billed as the Siamese twins because it sounded exotic. That was pretty much it. And Siamese is that using the phrase Siamese twins, is that considered like, is that offensive? Or is it just like inaccurate and therefore? I would say it's offensive and that it's inaccurate and it's inappropriate.

It's not, first of all, we don't call there is no sign-am. That would be number one. I don't know, even if you work and join twins from what was formerly known as sign-am, you wouldn't be sign-am-y twins. It's Thailand though. Sure. And secondly, if you aren't from formerly Siam, like why would you call, you know. Yeah, not fear.

Okay. What I start calling you French Justin. If you would do that, I would be thrilled. Really? Okay, so it's not, that wouldn't necessarily be like an appropriate or offensive, but it would be like inaccurate. Got it.

So don't use that. Say, can join. Yeah. Sounds smart. They were born in 1811 and initially they worked at home to support their family and they actually started a business and were fairly successful. But in 1829, a captain, Koffen, who was visiting, saw them and convinced them that they should move with him to the US, and that he could be their manager, and that they could make a lot more money and support their family in a lot better fashion if they would allow him to kind of tour them around

and show them off. A little refrain, I'll get you. They began, they agreed, and began touring the US. Initially is the Syme's double boys and then later is Syme's twins. They toured Syme's double boys is better. You like Syme's double boys better. Syme's double boys is a sweet name. Syme's twins is fine, but it's no Syme's double boys.

Do you, do you think you're like a really, really, really righteous like Asian rap outfit? You know what I mean? It's like really underground, really, really righteous, like, Asian rap outfit. You know what I mean? It's like really underground. The double boys. The Siamese double boys. Where are we from? Siam's not a place.

Why don't you wipe that smile off your face because we're coming at you with guns galore. We're attached at the hip. You wanna see more? That was great. Thanks. This is gonna surprise you. I more? That was great. Thanks. This is gonna surprise you. I just freestyled that.

Maybe you and your brothers could start being like the macaroid triple boys. Triple boys, the only outfit that's harder than the double boys. The West Virginia triple boys. That's a pretty good name. Okay. Okay. Done. I get credit, TN.

I'm getting the URL right now. They toured some in the UK as well, but they actually weren't allowed in France. They tried to do some tours in France, but they weren't allowed because there was a fear that if, as we kind of alluded to earlier, if any pregnant women saw them, then they would also give birth to conjoined twins. What year is this? 18, that's stupid for 18.

18.30. That's stupid for a lot of times. That's super stupid for 18.30. Like, 18.30? Was it Jules Verne or are you like up in this piece? That's stupid for a lot of times. That's super stupid for 1830. Like, 1830? Was it Jules Verne or are you up in this piece? We've talked about this before that as late as like the early 1900s, it was thought that if you read

something scary or saw something upsetting while you were pregnant, then it would somehow scar your child. But the idea that like, okay scar your child is with me, but like the idea that seeing Conjoined Twined twins is good commit mind crime on you seems like a little far-fetched. Was it like Sherlock alive back then 1830 Sherlock was alive, walk around soft location. Sherlock? You know Sherlock Holmes.

Like I mean, I know he means, but like he's not. Do you think Sherlock Holmes is a real person? What's next? So they weren't allowed in France. But they did torque sensibly in the US and the UK and as they moved around they saw many different doctors throughout their lives to be examined and evaluated for one because a lot of doctors wanted to for their own kind of medical curiosity, but to just see if they could be separated. But no doctor ever thought it was

possible, they thought it was way too risky. It had nothing to do with Captain Kauf and standing in the doorway with like a lot of, well, twos, I guess. I don't know. That was big money back then. No, it's just coins. No, coins, the balloons. Maybe the balloons.

Maybe the balloons in 1813. What's interesting about this is that they were actually only conjoined by a very narrow band of tissue at their waist. They shared a little bit of liver tissue and that was pretty much it. So by today's standards, they'd be pretty easy to separate. More than likely, I mean, I don't know. I don't have all the imaging to tell you for sure, but it would probably have been a successful surgery. So, personally, it would be like, took a run at it.

I mean, I guess it's like your life. So maybe you want to make sure that the person's like, 100% oh yeah, it would be like, took a run at it. I mean, I guess it's like your life, so maybe you wanna make sure the person's like, 100% oh yeah, I can definitely do that. Like, no problem. Well, exactly. And since they were connected by so little tissue, they were able to, you know, both do all the thing. They were, it wasn't uncomfortable.

And some of the ways that can join twins are, are can joined. It prevents them from sitting in certain ways, or moving certain ways, or doing certain things. They were prevented from a lot of times. That's kind of like a, that's kind of like an infer opinion for a pound situation, Sid.

I mean, like, you could be pretty, I mean, like, the distance between being very barely can join twins and like not can join twins, it's like great distance. It's like great distance. It's like infinite distance, actually, technically speaking. But it didn't, it really, as far as quality of life, now we don't know, I don't know. I didn't interview him, I can't tell you for sure.

But I will say that after they stopped touring, they settled in North Carolina, they got their citizenship, they started farming, so they had a successful farm, they married two sisters, Adelaide and Sarian Yates, and between the two of them, they fathered 21 children. Nice, whoa. So they did okay. Yeah, I mean, Deff, I'm not saying, like, I'm not saying their lives were worse, I'm just

taking umberage with the fact that you can't be mildly conjoined. Like you're just like, conjoined or not, I think. I guess. You know, the sister's dad, Adelaide and Sarah and Yates actually objected to the marriage, didn't want his daughters marrying them, which you just assume was because they were conjoined twins. Yeah. And it actually wasn't true.

I gotta remember the time period, it was just because they were from then, so I am. I just didn't think it was good. He was cool with the conjoined twins. Yeah. And it actually wasn't true. I gotta remember the time period, it was just because they were from then, so I am. I just didn't think it's good. He was cool with the conjoined twins thing. Figures because they were entertainers. You know, there's a lot of the types. The actors. They would, they did go back into show business later,

they worked with Barnum, famous later. They toured Europe that way. So not a lot of France, I think. But then their health began to decline and Chang died first in 1874 and Ang followed shortly thereafter. There have been a lot of other famous conjoined twins since and a lot of them are either coerced or voluntarily enter into the show business world to make their fortune.

There were Helen and Judith, they were Hungarian sisters who were joined back-to-back at the sacrum. They were born in 1701 and they were actually their parents made sure they were very well educated. They spoke many language, they were trained in singing and dancing and by all accounts enjoyed it. That's how they made their living and they enjoyed who knows. But that's how they said they enjoyed it. And eventually they gave that up, they entered a comment, but Alexander Pope wrote a poem about them, which is kind of cool. And you're going to recite it for me now. Nope. Okay. But later, got it. I'll look forward to it. Yeah, hold your breath. Millie and Christine McCoy were another pair of conjoined twins who were born in North

Carolina in 1851. This is a theme. We visit North Carolina a few times in this episode. I don't know why conjoined twins in North Carolina. They were born actually as slaves in 1851. And as a result of that, they were sold to various jerks who were trying to make money off of them Of course as well stolen a couple times by by jerks From other jerks. That's just a lot of jerks in this story But it doesn't insad because they ended up back with their family after slavery ended because they ended up back with their family after slavery ended.

Absolutely. Which was good. And they did continue to perform singing and dancing supposedly by choice. Oh, okay. That's nice. They were built. You can see references to that sometimes in like old

timey shows from the, they were called the two headed nightingale. Mm. They were actually again joined, their piopeia. So they were joined at like the sacrum again. There were the the Tochi brothers, Giacomo and Giovanni who were born in Italy in 1877, and they actually shared everything from the waist down. It was just one person, or was just one body. They were can join completely from the waist down. They were given to the Royal Academy of Medicine

in turn by their parents when they were unthul'd. Well. They were, which is, I mean, that's unheard of, now they were given to them. They were actually, each able, each twin was able to control their respective arm really well, and they both had a lot of artistic talent, which I think is kind of

cool. It's required a lot of cooperation. Yeah absolutely and it's not common. My understanding is it's not common that each twin necessarily has that much control over the limb that you know that is on their side. Sure. They also ended up marrying sisters and kind of retired from public life and lived 43 years near Venice in seclusion. Which sounds kind of nice. Yeah, Venice is nice. There are a pair of sisters you may have heard of the Hilton sisters. They're pretty famous. Paris and whatever name or backup. These are better. Violet and Daisy. They were again, Pia Pagas twins born in Brighton, England in 1908. Their mother, they actually were, they were sold to a midwife right after birth. Again, not because they were conjoined, but because the mother was on wed.

And so they didn't want that scandal to get out that this on-wed mother had these children. The midwife was a tyrant, and she forced them to learn how to sing and dance and perform Eventually they had to battle for their freedom and court and they escaped her However, they did continue to perform at that point again by choice. She gets a taste of the spotlight They start in a couple of different movies There was one that was unfortunately named freaks But there was another one that was named chained for a life which was a story It was supposed to be true life, but it wasn't, but it was supposed to be about

Conjoined Twins where one commits a murder. So the courts are trying to decide what to do. Whoa. Decent him to jail and can, you know, make the other twin go to jail. That's kind of interesting. Yeah. So that movie's out there. Chained for a Life, if you're ever interested. They even performed as part of Bob Hoops Act, tap dancing.

They both got married and divorced. One of their marriages only lasted 10 days. And after a while, their career kind of wound down and they ended up first running an unsuccessful hamburger stand in Florida and then working as grocery store clerks in North Carolina. Again, in North Carolina. That's great. What is in North Carolina? The open. Again, in North Carolina. That's great. What is in North Carolina, the open arms?

I don't know. That's wild. A couple other conjoined twins that I think are interesting to hear about because it was the first time that like a surgery successfully, was able to separate conjoined twins. Radica and Dutica, Nick who were from India in 1888, they had to be separated because Dutaka had gotten TB and it was very ill.

And it was the only way to save Radhika's life. And so they separated them and Radhika actually was able to live a year after that because it was a very narrow band of tissue. So it was a successful surgery, which is the first time that we know that that happened to that degree of success, I should say. Right.

It's in general, if you look at all these different twins lives, many of them sought to marry and were refused because throughout the, throughout olden times when we didn't know much, it was always an argument over whether or not one, were they two people or one person Which they're two people clearly, but the courts would argue about this and two was it morally indecent for them to get married Well, that's kind of crummy. Well because of the sex thing. Oh, yeah, okay Well, that makes sense. I think all of it. It's still kind of whack, but it is it's completely whack And I mean, I think we would all argue no

But but it was, it led to a lot of interesting moral and ethical debates, especially if, if two twins were separated. Sometimes if they only had one, if they had shared genitalia, sometimes they would kind of give the genitalia to one of the twins and not the other, which if they were both genotypically males, one would become phenotypically male and one would become phenotypically a female, which created other issues for them later down the road as to what they identified as and you know that kind of thing. So there were all kinds of different issues surrounding it.

In general separating conjoined twins is a risky surgery. It's better now because we have all kinds of imaging that can help us. We can do MRIs and angiography to figure out exactly what nerves and blood vessels and what parts of what organ are connected so that we know before we go in and try to separate conjoined twins, what we're going to cut through. At this point, it's much better. Since 1950, we have a success rate of about 75% for at least one twin surviving, but it's still incredibly risky. And especially twins that are joined, you know,

to a great extent that share a lot of the same internal organs or that share brain tissue, it can be a very, very risky surgery to this day. And so there are many twins who opt just not to do it. Wild. We are part of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. They've got a ton of great shows on there for you to go and listen to and enjoy.

Why not check out Bullseye. It's a pop culture show hosted by Jesse Thorne, the father of Maximum Fun, the pot of father, if you will. And they got a ton of great guests. I'm sure that there's going to be one on there that you would be very interested to hear from. They had one of the gentlemen on from from Key and Peel. That was a great, it's suddenly escaping me, which of the gentlemen it was, but it was one that was a really good interview. And you can find that at maximumfun.org as you can find all our shows.

Hey, next week we are going to be in the Pacific Northwest. We're going to be in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. Portland tickets are sold out, but they're still tickets available. You want to see this in Seattle. It's MB and BAM. Sorry, we are performing with my brother and my brother and me, which is a fight show I do with my brothers, but you can find the tickets at bit.ly4thslashmbnbamciaddle

and bit.ly4thslashvanmbnbam. Thank you to taxpayers for letting us use their song Medicines as the Intro and Attrial for a Program, and I believe that's gonna do it for us, said, that'll do it. That'll do it. And until next Wednesday, I'm Justin McRoy.

I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Music Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture, artist owned Listen or supported Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture

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