RADICA & DOODICA – The Indian Siamese Twins

The term ‘Siamese twin’ is synonymous with the medical condition of conjoined twins. The slang term is due to the mid 19th century popularity of Chang and Eng Bunker, joined twins who originally hailed from Siam. The brothers were so popular that their billing as Siamese twins came to represent their condition and not their nationality, even though the depth of their intermingled connectivity was not overly impressive compared to conjoined twins like the Tocci Brothers. The Bunker brothers were primarily joined at the chest by only a band of cartilage.

In 1888 in Orissa, India twin girls were born connected in a similar manner. While the birth of conjoined twins was often viewed as highly unusual, the superstitious residents of their village saw the girls as ‘symbols of divine wrath’ and lobbied for their expulsion. Their father, distraught by the appearance of his daughters, moved to physically separate the girls by his own hand but local officials rescued the infants and the monks of a local temple took over their care. The monks named the girls Radica and Doodica. In 1893 Radica and Doodica were sold to London showman Captain Colman. The sisters began a career exhibiting themselves across Europe often paired with another Colman prodigy, a dwarf billed as the smallest man in the world, Peter the Small. It has been said that Colman treated the girls as an adoptive father and not exclusively as an exploitive promoter. The girls seemed happy and they had each other, until Doodica developed tuberculosis in 1902.
In Paris Dr. Eugene-Louis Doyen separated the sisters in an effort to save Radica. Doyen was a pioneering medical filmmaker and filmed the twins’ surgery as La Separation de Doodica-Radica.
The operation was considered a success initially and Doodica passed shortly afterward from tuberculosis. However, the separation came too late as Radica contracted tuberculosis from her sister and passed on in 1903.
She spent the last year of her life in a Paris sanatorium, alone.
Sections of Doyen’s filmed separation surgery were last shown in the UK documentary series The Last Machine in 1995. Previously, the film was often shown in grindhouse styled sideshows spliced into exploitation ‘freak’ films.

CAROLINE CRACHAMI – The Sicilian Fairy

Recently a number of television shows, documentaries and circulating picture sets have generated great interest in the genetic phenomena of primordial dwarfism. These tiny people, these seemingly fragile, delicate and near ethereal human beings conjure images of gossamer fairies and quaint folk stories. Such enchanting imagery is likely the root of this new interest in the condition.

The first individual to be medically cited with what we now call primordial dwarfism was Caroline Crachami. The story of ‘The Sicilian Fairy’ is inspiring, tragic and empowering all at once depending on which version of her biography one believes. Regardless, her story is one that should be told and remembered for it demonstrates the greed often found average men and chronicles the careless exploitation of a remarkable human being. According to the pamphlet entitled Memoirs of Miss Crachami, the Celebrated Sicilian Dwarf Caroline Crachami was born at Palermo in Sicily on November 15, 1815. Caroline Crachami purportedly only weighted one pound at birth and measured a scant eight inches in height. Caroline was the only unique child of five siblings and, despite claims of exhibitions in Panama, Miss Crachami first came to major public prominence during an 1824 visit to England. While there Miss Crachami was accompanied by one Dr. Gilligan who acted as her agent and he exhibited her in Liverpool, Birmingham and Oxford before finally taking her to London where she was exhibited in Mayfair.
Crachami caused a great amount of sensation and proved to be incredibly popular. Hundreds of people would queue up daily and pay one shilling admission to view the nine-year-old nineteen inch marvel. For the most part, inside the exhibit, Miss Crachami would simply wander around the stage while listening to music. For a few shillings more one was permitted to handle the tiny girl, permitted to dance a little with her, to pat her head and feed her a biscuit or two. King George IV was and admirer as were three hundred members of the English nobility. More than three thousand members of high society visited and played with the doll-like Crachami and likely thousands more common folk did so as well.
The exhibiting schedule was gruelling and on June 3rd of 1824, after receiving more that two hundred patrons, the tiny Miss Crachami collapsed and expired during exhibition.
Her exhibitor, Dr. Gilligan, shopped Crachami’s earthly remains around to various medical institutions before selling them to the anatomist John Hunter for $500, and this is where the tale takes a tragic twist. Caroline was a child far younger than the nine years she was billed as. Modern examinations of her remains place her age at no more than three. She was also likely not Sicilian and probably hailed from Ireland where her parents read of her death in the Cork Inquirer. Her father quickly ferried to England in an attempt to halt any dissection and autopsy. However he arrived too late and Caroline’s bones had already been stripped bare.
The skeleton of Caroline Crachami now resides at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons together with a few mementoes of her life including a pair of her silk stockings, her slippers, a ruby ring and casts of her face and arm. There Caroline forever stands next to The Irish Giant Charles Byrne, his seven foot seven skeleton standing as a silent protector.
image:
Portrait of Caroline Crachami by Alfred Edward Chalon.

PERCILLA – The Monkey Girl

The case of Julia Pastrana has long been held as a tragic example of exploitation. The remarkable bearded prodigy lived a life of manipulation and in death her body was abused and disgraced by callous souls and ignorance. The life of her contemporary could have easily followed the same shadowed path however her story is of true love, inner beauty and respect.
During her long life Percilla Lauther was known by many names. Originally she was descriptively dubbed ‘the hairy little girl’ and later as ‘the monkey girl’, but it is quite likely that she will forever be remembered by those dear to her as Percilla Bejano – loving wife of Emmitt the Alligator-Skinned Man.
The hirsute Percilla was born on April 26 of 1911 in the Puerto Rican town of Bayamon. Percilla had been born with hypertrichosis, she possessed two rows of teeth and drew immediate attention from the public and the medical community. Percilla’s father was a native of Spain and he did not know what to make of his hairy daughter initially. Percilla’s parents traveled to New York City seeking answers from American doctors and there they remained for seven months until Percilla’s father developed the idea of exhibiting his daughter for profit.
Percilla’s father was not a greedy man. He merely saw an opportunity to make the most of the situation nature had thrust upon his daughter. However his limited knowledge of English and business made promoting Percilla difficult and he approached showman Karl. L. Lauther for assistance. Lauther was an accomplished promoter and he owned and operated several shows during his lifetime. He took an instant interest in Percilla and hired her on the spot. Lauther also hired an assistant to help Percilla’s father care for the child after his wife returned to Puerto Rico. That arrangement was short lived however, as Percilla’s father was shot and killed in Gainesville. Upon his death, and according to his final wish, Lauther adopted young Percilla as his own daughter.
Percilla never said anything ill of her adoptive father, thus one may assume that he was a compassionate and loving man. In fact all evidence indicates that despite exhibiting Percilla for profit, Lauther was extremely sensitive to the public perception of his adoptive daughter. Lauther disliked the fact that the public took to calling Percilla a ‘monkey girl’ and verbally lashed out at anyone bold enough to call her a ‘freak’. But the ‘Monkey Girl’ moniker stuck and Lauther gave in and began to publicly pair Percilla with a trained chimpanzee named Josephine. He may have had the last laugh, however, as the two attractions were juxtaposed. Percilla would warmly and graciously welcome guests to her exhibit while Josephine would rudely smoke cigarettes and spit.
In the late 1930′s, while performing with the Johnny J. Jones Exposition, Percilla met fellow marvel Emmitt Bejano, the Alligator-Skinned Man. Despite her heavy beard and his ichthyosis a sweet romance blossomed between the unique couple. The pair saw past their physical differences. Emmitt was a man with calloused skin who spent performance intermissions submerged in vats of ice water because he could not sweat. Emmitt was quite literally ‘thick skinned’ and he had a ‘hard shell to crack’ but beneath he was a compassionate, gentle, charming and passionate man. Percilla, despite looking more beast than beauty, was elegant, eloquent and possessed an enchanting singing voice. Before long Percilla realized that the gentle Emmitt was the love of her life and the two eloped in 1938.
A year later, the couple welcomed a daughter, Francine, into their family. Unfortunately pneumonia extinguished her life after a scant four months.
When Emmitt and Percilla returned to exhibition they were promoted as the World’s Strangest Married Couple. Percilla and Emmitt shared the stage and most notably worked for Ringling Brothers and other shows successfully for over a decade. They appeared together in the 1980 film Carny opposite Jodie Foster and Gary Busey. Eventually the couple grew tired of life in the public eye and opted to retire to a private life in Gibbstown, Florida. There the two remained madly in love for many more years. Their union ended with Emmitt’s passing in 1995.
Percilla carried on, clean shaven for the first time in her life, and briefly appeared in various documentaries and on the Jerry Springer show where she charmed the audience with stories of her beloved Emmitt and by shyly singing his favourite song ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’.
Percilla herself passed away in her sleep in February of 2001. She is dearly missed by all who knew her.

JEFFREY HUDSON – Lord Minimus

The tale of tiny Jeffrey Hudson is unique, to say the least. The tiny man famously known as ‘Lord Minimus’ and considered one of the ‘wonders of the age’ was a member of the royal court, fought in the English civil war, killed a man in an illegal duel, was eventually reviled and spent over 25 years as a slave.

Jeffrey Hudson was born to average sized parents in England’s smallest county, Rutlan, on June 14, 1619. His three brothers and half sister were all of average height and Jeffrey’s tiny, yet perfectly proportioned, dimensions quickly became apparent. His father tended the cattle of the Duke of Buckingham, George Villers, 1st and on his seventh birthday young Jeffrey Hudson was presented before the Duchess of Buckingham as a ‘fine rarity of nature’. The Duchess was so smitten the little man who stood only 18 inches tall that she invited him to join the household. His father approved. Only a few months after joining the household, the Duke and Duchess entertained King Charles and Queen Henrietta in London. At the climax of the celebration, during an opulent banquet, a pie was placed before the Queen. Jeffrey arose from the crust of the pie dressed in tiny suit of armour to the shock of all in attendance. The Queen was known as a collector of rarities and simply had to add Jeffrey to her collection. Jeffrey was invited into the Queen’s royal household and, in 1626, he accepted by moving into Denmark House in London.
Jeffrey was one of several human marvels residing in Denmark House. The Welsh giant William Evans was among his housemates, as were two other dwarves. It is important to note that dwarves were not an uncommon sight in royal courts of Europe, but Jeffrey’s dwarfism was rare and unique. His perfect proportions were likely due to hypopituitarism, a lack of growth hormone, giving him the appearance of a man in miniature. In carnival slang he was a midget, in medical and correct terms he was a pituitary dwarf. Jeffrey proved to be a charming, humorous and light-hearted boy and he quickly became the Queen’s favourite member of court and a favourite of artisans and writers. In fact, he was celebrated in several poems and narratives during his early years.
Jeffrey was educated in the Queen’s household and learned the manners of the court. He was brought up in the Roman Catholic Church of her household and he learned to ride a horse and shoot a pistol. He was originally something of a jester but as he grew older, and displayed examples of intellect and cunning, he began to serve the court in diplomatic affairs. In 1630 he was included in a mission to the Queen’s home nation of France and in 1637 he travelled to the Netherlands to observe the siege of Breda.
By 1642 the relationship between King Charles and the Parliament had deteriorated and armed conflict broke out between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. As Charles led the Royalist army, the Queen and Hudson returned to the Netherlands to raise money and support for King Charles. When they returned to England, they found it in the midst of a full-blown civil war.
They were able to join Royalist forces at Oxford and there the Queen appointed Hudson a ‘Captain of Horse’ rank and Captain Jeffrey Hudson presumably commanded troops in cavalry raids orchestrated by Prince Rupert.
By 1643 it became apparent that England was no longer safe for the Queen and Hudson escorted her to France and later he helped establish a new court in exile at Nevers. By this time Hudson had shed his previous clownish reputation and he took his rank and social position quite seriously. He tolerated no insults or entertainment at his expense and when insulted by the brother of William Crofts he challenged the man to a duel. Hudson chose pistols on horseback and shot Crofts through the head. Despite winning the duel, the episode proved to be the downfall of Hudson. Duelling was illegal in France and the murder of Crofts was regarded as a transgression again the hospitality of France. Adding to that William Crofts, who served as the Queen’s Master of Horse and head of her lifeguard, was livid and petitioned the Queen to administer justice. The Queen herself was both embarrassed and outraged by Hudson’s outburst and subsequently expelled Hudson from her court.
Hudson’s life continued its downward spiral and shortly after leaving the court in 1643 he was aboard a ship captured by Barbary pirates. The Muslim pirates were well known for raiding the coasts and shipping lanes of Western Europe for plunder and slaves and, as was their custom with European captives, Hudson was taken to North Africa as a slave. There he spent the next 25 years of his life labouring.
The date and circumstances of his rescue are not known but in the 1660’s several missions were sent from England to Algeria and Tunis to ransom English captives. During one of these routine ransom missions Captain Jeffrey Hudson was likely amongst a group of slaves release was negotiated for. His first documented presence back in England was in 1669.
Upon his return, Hudson was a changed man. Most remarkable was that during his captivity he had added forty-five inches to his height. Such growth spurts are not unheard of in cases of pituitary dwarfism but the added height was not a blessing to Hudson as he was now simply a short man and not a tiny miracle.
Few records of Hudson’s years between 1669 and his death in 1682 exist, likely due to the fact that he was no longer a marvel. It is evident that he received a few grants of money from the Duke of Buckingham and the new King, Charles II. In 1676 he personally returned to London seeking a pension from the royal court. His timing was again disastrous as he arrived during a period of great anti-Catholic activity. He was imprisoned at the Gatehouse prison for the ‘crime’ of being Roman Catholic and he was not released until 1680.
The ‘wonder of the age’ Captain Jeffrey Hudson died only a couple of years later, a penniless pauper. The exact date and circumstances of his passing, and his place of burial remain unknown.
image: engraving by Nicholas Droeshutt found in James Caulfield’s Portraits, Memoirs and Characters of Remarkable Persons from the Reign of Edward III to the Revolution.

DICK HILBURN – The Quarter-Man

Man is often greater than the sum of his parts.
On January 15, 1918 an infant named Dick Hilburn was born in Bladenboro, North Carolina. He was born physically incomplete.
Dick Hilburn was born with a single arm and physically little else. He possessed no left arm and no legs, only a vestigial two-toed foot protruded from his left hip. Yet, despite what would normally be considered a crippling handicap, Dick Hilburn possessed an unconquerable spirit and indomitable work ethic which allowed him to not only surpass expectations but to also exceed the ambitions of many able-bodied men.
Dick Hilburn conquered his mobility limitations with little more than a rolling board. He used his arm to propel and steer his body and in the process developed great physical strength. That strength allowed him to hoist his body wherever he willed it with relative ease.
Having dealt with his mobility issues, Hilburn focused on developing his mind and ingenuity. He proved to be a talented artist and became fairly well know for his skills with a tattoo needle. He was also sought after as a commercial painter of signs, banners, trucks and semi trailers.
He possessed a natural business sense and rather than rely on showmen for exhibition purposes, Hilburn developed and operated his own show. He exhibited himself on his own terms and, later, added a second attraction. A young parastremmatic dwarf, a dwarf with twisted limbs, named Carl ‘Frogboy’ Norwood joined the venture and Hilburn generously provided for the both of them. During the off season the two operated a local diner, which was also owned by the one-armed wonder Dick Hilburn.
Successful in life, art and business Hilburn was also successful in love. He later married an average woman who had all her fingers and toes.
Dick Hilburn ran his sideshow until the day he died in June of 1971. He lived his life as any man free of handicap would. His only limitation in life was his mortality.
As for Carl Norwood, he was managed by Hilburn’s widow for a short time before joining up with the great showman Ward Hall. He toured for a few more seasons before retiring and passing on in Atlanta on Feb. 24, 1976.

MILLIE-CHRISTINE – The Two-Headed Nightingale

Millie and Christine were born into slavery on July 11, 1851 in the town of Welches Creek, North Carolina. The girls were joined at the spine and their owner, a blacksmith named Jabez McKay, was not sure what to do with the girls. Their parents, Monimia and Jacob, had previously sired seven children but clearly the twins would be of little use to McKay due to their bizarre appearance and sickly constitution. Eventually McKay opted to sell the eight-month-old girls and their mother to Carolinian showman John Pervis for $1000.
Pervis began exhibiting Millie and Christine immediately but within four years the girls were sold to showmen Joseph Pearson Smith and Brower and then kidnapped. The kidnappers exhibited the twins privately, mostly to members of the medical community, for over three years while Smith and Brower frantically searched for their investment. They eventually located Millie and Christine while they were on exhibit in Birmingham, England. The law became involved in the situation and, as slavery was illegal in England, the girls were released into the custody of their mother. She, however, had no idea how to proceed with the girls in a foreign country and as a result she gave custody and ‘ownership’ back to Smith.
While Smith continued to exhibit Mille and Christine, he found the public was not very interested. At the time, the anatomical novelty of conjoined twins simply was not enough to capture public attention. Smith decided to develop Millie and Christine as a performing act. Furthermore, he endeavoured to make the girls as extraordinary in skill as they were in appearance. To that end, he and his wife tutored the girls in music and languages. Millie and Christine were taught etiquette, social graces and were given music lessons. It came to pass that the girls developed impressive singing abilities and their singing prowess soon became the focal point of their careers.
As ‘The Two-Headed Nightingale’ the conjoined girls started to gain a remarkable reputation. While Millie was a contralto and Christine a soprano, the girls were able to blend and harmonize their voices in incredibly appealing ways. By 1860, Millie and Christine were on the cusp of stardom.
In 1862 Smith died. The girls were willed to his son Joseph Jr. and it was Joseph who catapulted the girls to stardom by using a clever bit of showmanship.
Throughout much of their life, Millie and Christine were often considered one person. Due to their shared body, it was often unclear if the girls were legally and physically a single being or individuals. The girls themselves often referred to themselves in the singular, using ‘I’ in the place of ‘we’. Joseph Jr. saw opportunity in this confusion and opted to advertise the girls from a new perspective.
The girls became Millie-Christine, a girl with two heads, four arms and four legs.
The concept of such an incredible phenomenon drew immediate crowds and Millie-Christine enjoyed immediate and world-wide popularity. Furthermore, it was the singing of ‘The Two-Headed Nightingale’ that quickly gained predominance over appearance and Millie-Christine eventually performed for European royalty, including the Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria. Mille-Christine became renowned for singing, playing the guitar and piano in unison and dancing the waltz in front of thousands of people in the greatest halls and venues of the world.
Soon, the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect and Millie-Christine was free. During the course of her career, Millie-Christine earned more than $250,000.
Millie-Christine preformed until the age of fifty-eight. Once retired, Millie-Christine became Millie and Christine once again. The sisters built a home in Columbus, North Carolina where they lived quietly until their passing on October 8, 1912. Millie went first, succumbing to tuberculosis, and her sister followed seventeen hours later.
They were sixty-one, the oldest conjoined twins on record.

DOMINIQUE CASTAGNA – The Mummy

The Living Skeleton was a fairly common human marvel appearing in private exhibits and travelling sideshows during the heyday of human exhibition. Living Skeletons, sometimes referred to as ‘shadows’, were generally adult men afflicted with some sort of consumption disease ranging from digestive disorders to full blown cases of tuberculosis. Living Skeletons were emaciated to a startling degree, many of them weighed less than 75 pounds and some weighed as little as 50 pounds.
The Living Skeleton was often presented in tandem with a Fat Lady to better juxtapose the physical attributes of both curiosities. In fact, went visiting a new town, it was a common practice amongst showmen to stage a wedding ceremony between a Fat lady and a Living Skeleton to capitalize on free publicity and draw crowds.
The list of Living Skeletons is long, but few were as unfortunate as Dominique Castagna – The Mummy.
Born in Slaligny, France in 1869 Dominique Castagna was, by all accounts, an ugly child. His face was contorted, his eyes were buggy and his nose was compressed and flat. To make matters worse, at the age of two he stopped developing normally. His appearance quickly became gaunt and emaciated and his growth stunted. By the age of twelve he was fully grown and as an adult he was only 4’ 9” and weighted only 50 pounds and 6 ounces. Due to his appearance, Castagna was extremely introverted and lonely. He had few friends and was generally avoided by all who saw him as he was assumed to be deathly ill and contagious.
Initially Dominique Castagna tried to live a normal life, but his frail body and looks didn’t allow for a great range of career choices. While working as an office assistant for an architect in Monaco a co-worker named Cruzel convinced him to exhibit himself for profit. Dominique Castagna reasoned that, since he was always stared at anyway, he may as well make some money in the process. Still, he was greatly reluctant to be made a spectacle. It was with great trepidation that he entered show business.
Castagna exhibited himself in Marseille for the first time in 1896. Cruzel acted as his agent during that venture and every venture afterward. It was Cruzel who dubbed Castagna ‘The Mummy’, inspired by the sunken features and boney body of Castagna. The name stuck and, perhaps despite the label, Cruzel and Castagna became great friends.
Castagna was overjoyed to be accepted by someone who, over time, no longer saw the disfigurements and physical peculiarities. Cruzel accepted Castagna as a he was and with his friendship Castagna was able to ignore the more miserable aspects of his life. He hated exhibition and the constant stares. He was torn apart by his loneliness and the lack of love in his life.
When his friend Cruzel married and quit show business, Castagna shot himself in a hotel in Leige in 1905.