Siamese Twins

When I first came across the phrase “Siamese Twins”, there was one bold question popping out of my mind.

“How do conjoined twins get their general scientific name : Siamese twins? What does Thailand have to do with conjoined twins?”

Later I found out that it wasn’t the so called first pair of Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker that gives a new phrase to the English language, instead, it was their fame.

"Joined at the sternum"

Chang and Eng, the original Siamese Twins were born in 1811 in SIAM (now known as Thailand). They are two human beings joined together at birth by living tissues. When this unusual birth news knocked the eardrums of the king of Siam, he decided that the babies should be put to death due to some superstitious thinking. He thought such a birth was an evil sign, an omen that something bad was going to happen in his land. As time passed and no disaster occurred, King Rama II withdrew his decree of death for the two boys. When the two boys grew up, they were exhibited before billions of people throughout the world. Their managers, Captain Coffin and Robert Hunter brought them to different continents, meeting kings and queens. They grew famous in a short time. However, they retired and settled down a decade later.

The most interesting part of their lives was they actually GOT MARRIED to the Yates sisters, Chang to Adelaide Yates and Eng to Sarah Anna Yates!!! They have to share a large bed built for the foursome. WHOAAA!!! The people of the country bet that no children would come from this union. However, nine months after the wedding, Eng and Sallie welcomed their first-born daughter. Six days later, Chang and Adelaide welcomed their first daughter also. This continued until Eng and Sarah had produced 11 children. Chang and Adelaide were almost as productive, producing 10 children.
*Don’t ask me how. I really can’t understand. To tell you the truth, my classmates and I looked at each other clueless-ly when teacher told us each of them PRODUCED almost A DOZEN of children!! Speechless.

Ok. Done with their extraordinary marriage story. Moving on……

Eng was a very health-conscious man while Chang drowned himself in whiskey. Chang eventually got stroke. In 1874, Chang caught a cold and he passed away. Eng didn’t die at the same time. He died several hours later. The doctors expected that Eng would survive because he was healthy and fit. After the diagnosis, they found out that Eng died from shocked. Why? Imagine that Eng had to sleep beside or attach to his dead brother the whole night. If I were to attached to a cold, dead body, I would definitely get a heart attack. If I were UNFORTUNATE to be EXTREMELY HEALTHY at that moment, I might just grab a knife and stab myself to death. OUCH!!!

For your information, they were NOT the first pair of conjoined twins recorded in medical annals as there were probably about 100 such pairs known by the time of their 1811 births, a fact which helped the King of Siam reverse an early death sentence on the brothers. In fact, conjoined twins were recorded as early as 945 in Armenia and the first pair of successfully separated twins took place in 1689 by German physician G.

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