Video: Was there really a man with two faces: Edward Mordrake
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
A legend about an unusual man who lived in England at the end of the 19th century has been walking around the world for more than a hundred years. Modern doctors are aware of such cases, there are similar people among those living now, but the existence of Edward Mordrake is questioned, since the circumstances of his life seem too incredible. Despite this, the image of a man with two faces, suffering from ugliness and forced to coexist with his second self, is attractive to writers, artists, musicians and therefore is actively exploited in art.
Basic information about the life of this man was obtained from the book "Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine", published in 1896. Its authors, two American physicians, George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle, have collected all kinds of bizarre medical cases in this work, including the story of Mordrake. This man was allegedly born into one of the most noble families in England in 1887. The child was born with an unusual ugliness: behind, on his head, he had another face, which, moreover, was "alive" - could open his eyes, laugh and cry, but he never spoke and could not eat. The young man, despite the anomaly, grew up beautiful and gifted:
Further in the book, a completely logical explanation was given that this anomaly is known to medicine as a parasitic Siamese twin, which is almost completely absorbed by a stronger brother. I must say that science at that time was really aware of such cases.
Despite the fact that the deformity clearly did not interfere with Edward physically, but his mental health gradually began to deteriorate. They began to notice that the “second person” often expressed opposite emotions - it seemed to be gloatingly happy when the young man was sad, and vice versa, cried when he was in good spirits.
Despite the watchful eye of doctors, family and friends, at the age of 23, Mordrake committed suicide by shooting his second face. In a suicide note, he asked, allegedly, to cut a "demon" out of him before burial. True, as the author notes, it is not known whether the doctors complied with this request.
If we talk about the source itself, then the book, although written by doctors, does not seem to serve as a guarantee of reliability. The fact is that about a year before its publication, the Boston Post newspaper published an article by science fiction writer Charles Lotin Hildreth entitled "Miracles of Modern Science: Semi-Human Monsters Considered Children of the Devil." It was in it that the story of Edward Mordrake was first described, and it seems that the venerable authors simply copied it from there, mistaking it for a scientific publication. Today, this story, along with a photograph of two-faced Edward, goes viral on the Internet from time to time. In fact, the real photo of Mordraik does not exist, and in the replicated photo there is a wax figure created by artists based on a famous plot. Whether such a person actually existed is not clear. Despite the plausible story, researchers differ on this issue.
On the one hand, medicine is really aware of similar cases of twins splicing, they are called. For example, a child named "The Two-Headed Boy of Bengal" was born in 1783 and died of a cobra bite in 1787. His skull is kept at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Today in the world there is one boy with a similar anomaly, who lived to be 15 years old. True, he succeeded only thanks to the dedication of his parents and modern medicine. Tres Johnson of Bernie, Missurri, as well as Mordrake, is called "the man with two faces."So, in principle, it is impossible to reject such a case from a medical point of view.
However, the details of Mordrake's rich personality and musical talent raise doubts. All such babies known to doctors were mentally retarded. This is almost inevitable when twins are spliced like this. Tres Jones, in addition, suffered from headaches and seizures after birth, as a result of which he underwent several operations. So, if such a phenomenon could survive and grow in the 19th century, then he had practically no chance of being a full-fledged person. It is possible that the author, taking as a basis some real case of the birth of a twin parasite, creatively embellished reality, while creating a gloomy but compassionate image of a person forced to carry the evil personality of a brother who merged with him.
It is known that in the 19th century, circuses and freak shows became the usual fate for people with unusual body features. Read next: A Feast in War: Why 10,000 Guests Came to a Lilliputian Wedding in New York
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