Parapagus Conjoined Twins, 16th Century

Parapagus Conjoined Twins, 16th Century

Woodcut of "a monster having two heads, one male and the other female" from Des Monstres et prodiges by Ambroise Paré, 1573. Conjoined twins are identical twins born with their bodies joined at some point and having varying degrees of residual duplication, a result of the incomplete division of the ovum from which the twins developed. Parapagus twins are fused side-by-side with a shared pelvis. Twins that are dithoracic parapagus are fused at the abdomen and pelvis, but not the thorax. Twins that are diprosopic parapagus have one trunk and dicephalic. Twins that are dicephalic parapagus are dicephalic, and have two (dibrachius), three (tribrachius), or four (tetrabrachius) arms. Des Monstres is filled with unsubstantiated accounts of sea devils, marine sows, and monstrous animals with human faces. With its extensive discussion of reproduction and illustrations of birth defects, the book invited accusations of pornography.

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2700 x 3946 px | 30.5 MB

22.9 x 33.4 cm | 9.0 x 13.2 in (300 dpi)