The Two-Headed Boy of Bengal

In May 1783, in a small village named Mundul Gaut, in Bengal, India, a strange child was born. He had two heads. The midwife assisting the birth was so horrified by the child's appearance that she tried to kill the monstrosity by throwing him into the fire. Fortunately, the baby was rescued with some burns in one eye and ear. The parents, after recovering from the initial shock, began to see the newborn as a money making opportunity, and with that in mind, left their village for Calcutta where their deformed baby could be exhibited. The two-headed baby attracted great deal of attention and earned the family a fair amount of money. Between shows, to prevent the crowd from taking a peek without paying, his parents kept the unfortunate child hidden, usually under a sheet, sometimes for hours at a time. As his fame spread across India, several nobleman, civil servants and city officials invited the child and his parents to their homes for private exhibitions, where their guests could examine the curious specimen up close. One of these observers was a Colonel Pierce who described the encounter to the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks and it was Sir Banks who later forwarded the account to the surgeon Everard Home. By “two headed” some people might assume two heads growing side by side from a single neck. In this case, however, the boy’s second head grew atop the other. It sat inverted on top of the main head, and ended in a neck-like stump. The second head had a few irregularities— the ears were malformed, the tongue was small, and the lower jaw was rather small, but otherwise both heads were of the same size, and were covered by black hair at their junction. The second head seemed to function independently of the main head. When the child cried or smiled, the features of the upper head were not always affected and did not match the emotion of the child.