Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Tocci
Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Tocci (born October 4, 1877 in Locana , † in the 20th century) were Siamese twins .
Childhood and youth in show business
Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Tocci were the first children of the Italian worker Giovanni Tocci and his wife Maria Luigia Mezzanrosa. The birth was uncomplicated because the twins were very small, but it triggered a shock for the parents and the midwife: The boys belonged to the dicephalus type , that is, they had two heads and necks, four arms and two chests. At the level of the sixth rib, their bodies united into a single abdomen, which had rudiments of a second genital organ on the back.
After the initial shock, the parents decided to earn money with the two children. Giovanni Battista and Giacomo were exhibited in Turin at the age of four weeks . Professors Fubini and Mosso from the Turin Medical School examined the twins at the time. They gave little hope to the parents that the children would have a long life. A similar case, the twins Ritta and Christina Parodi , became known in the 19th century. These two children had died at the age of eight months. Fubini and Mosso found that the Tocci twins, who at that time only weighed about four kilograms, had a different heart rhythm, which corresponded to the pulse in the leg on the side of the twin in question. Breathing was also done independently of the other child.
After they had been prophesied that their children would die soon, the parents apparently wanted to continue their show career as soon as possible. In May 1878 the Tocci twins could be seen in Paris , in October in Lyon . There they were examined again. Their height and weight, like the rest of their development, corresponded to the average child of their age, although they had been so small at birth. In the following years, the Tocci family toured Italy and France as well as Switzerland, Poland, Austria and Germany. It is not certain whether she was also in England. At the demonstration in front of the Swiss Natural Science Society in Bern in August 1879 , the twins were presented by Dr. Grünwald, who added an illustration to his publication about the children in which they were fighting over a spoonful of porridge. At the age of three years and four months they were presented in Vienna - from ten to twelve in the morning and from one to five in the afternoon every day of the week. A medically trained visitor noted at the time that both children spoke Italian and Giovanni Battista made a lively impression, whereas his brother looked a bit "idiotic". This impression was later not confirmed; Giacomo Tocci was also mentally normal.
In 1886, the German HW Otto found that both children were developing well. They now spoke German and French, had learned to read and write and showed an interest in music. Giovanni Battista seemed more intelligent than his brother, but Giacomo was by no means, as had once been thought, moronic. In 1886 and 1891, Rudolf Virchow examined the children and confirmed both times that they made a healthy and strong impression. In 1891, together with the twins, one of their younger brothers - the Tocci family had grown significantly in the meantime - was presented in Berlin. None of the nine younger children in the family had any medical characteristics.
It was now clear that each of the twins could control the leg on their side of the common lower body. Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Tocci were able to stand but never learned to walk. As the case of twins Abigail and Brittany Hensel , born in 1990, shows, coordination might have been possible. However, Giacomo Tocci had a clubfoot that made it impossible to walk normally. Jan Bondeson also says that the Tocci twins were probably built too top-heavy and, moreover, were never able to train their leg muscles sufficiently - partly because of their sprawling show career. He also suspects the parents of having consented to the boys' immobility because it made it easier to keep them under control. Whatever the reasons, Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Tocci could only crawl forward all their lives.
In 1891 the Tocci family began touring the United States. Again, many doctors were intrigued, and articles appeared in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Scientific American , although the twins' parents prevented their children from being thoroughly examined. Apparently they feared a loss of attractiveness through a scientific examination of the case.
Literary utilization
During their American tour, Mark Twain also became aware of the twins and decided to use the motif of the double-headed individual in a story. He named his protagonists Angelo and Luigi Capello, obviously with a view to the origins of the Tocci twins, but also incorporated elements into his work that came from the vicinity of the bunker twins . In the end, two different works emerged: Puddn'head Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins .
Withdrawal from show business
The stay in the USA was initially planned for only one year, but lasted at least from 1891 to 1894, possibly even longer. When they could decide for themselves at the age of 20, Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Tocci returned to Italy and bought a villa near Venice . The property was surrounded by high walls, because the twins were determined never to be gawked at again. From this time on, the testimonies about their life become sparse. HW Otto reported that in 1900 they were still alive and in good health. In 1904 the news of her marriage to two women was circulated, which encouraged the press to speculate about the legal consequences of having children. After all, the two men had only one sex organ together. But after this sensational report, the voices that argued with the Tocci brothers fell silent again.
Speculation about death
In 1906 the French doctors Lesbre and Forgeot spread the news of the death of the Tocci twins, but according to the German doctor Hans Huebner they were still alive in 1911. Maurice Gille later claimed that, to the best of his knowledge, they were still alive in 1912 and were also blessed with children. According to Martin Monestier's Human Oddities and a number of other reports, the Tocci brothers died in 1940 without leaving any descendants. That would mean they would have reached the age of 63, one of the longest age ranges for Siamese twins of their type.
Exhibits
There is a wax model of the Tocci twins in the Spitzner Museum.
Others
Apart from Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Tocci, only a few cases of this type of Siamese twins are known, such as Ritta and Christina Parodi and Rosa and Marie Drouin .
The Tocci twins were making $ 1,000 a week at times by satisfying the audience's sensationalism. Posters based on photographs of the brothers and even tocci dolls are still sold today.
literature
- Jan Bondeson : The Two-Headed Boy, and Other Medical Marvels . Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY 2004, ISBN 0-8014-8958-X , pp. 173-182.
Web links
- Literature by and about Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Tocci in the bibliographic database WorldCat
Individual evidence
- ↑ JMR Donan: One body, two souls. In: Focus 14, 1996.
- ↑ Oldest conjoined twins ever (male), In: guinnessworldrecords.com (accessed July 18, 2020)
- ↑ a b Tocci Twins Photo Album. February 4, 2010, accessed July 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Look of the shudder. In: Der Spiegel 23, 1985, edition of June 3, 1985
- ^ The Tocci Brothers. Retrieved February 15, 2010
- ↑ Conjoined Twins Doll: The Tocci Brothers. January 14, 2010, accessed on July 18, 2020 .