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JOHN WOOLF IS A RESEARCHER, WRITER AND DR SPECIALISING IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY HISTORIAN HISTORY. HE WORKS ACROSS T.V, RADIO CULTURAL FILM. AND HAS CO-WRITTEN AN AUDIBLE-COMMISSIONED HE STEPHEN FRY'S VICTORIAN SECRETS, BOOK, OCTOBER 2018) AND HIS NEW BOOK, (PUBLISHED WONDERS IS PUBLISHED BY MICHAEL O'MARA THE 2019) IN THE U.K and PEGASUS IN THE USA (MAY 2019) (NOVEMBER MEDICINE AND FREAK SHOWS: A TROUBLED RELATIONSHIP Words: Dr John Woolf Images: Wellcome collection
On 24 November 1829 over thirty surgeons and physicians crowded into the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London. There was Astley Cooper and Anthony Carlisle, previous Presidents of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), and Honoratus Leigh Thomas the current President. There was also a cohort from the Royal College of Physicians: Francis Hawkins, Charles Locock and Henry Halford, the President of the College. These learned gentlemen had come to pay homage to the exceptional bodies of Chang and Eng The Siamese Twins, eighteen years old and joined below the breastbone by a band of flesh 2in thick and 4in long. They were giving a private performance in an exhibition space dubbed the Home of Mystery, marked with hieroglyphics and fronted by the giant statues of the Egyptian Gods Isis and Osiris. The surgeons and physicians watched in amazement as the twins performed acrobatics with somersaults and backflips. They even played a form of badminton with each brother holding a miniature racket and hitting the shuttlecock to and fro. On account of their connecting ligament the twins stood a mere 4–5in apart, so this fast-paced hitting of the shuttlecock was a spectacle of agility, harmony and speed. "The surgeons and physicians watched in amazement as the twins performed acrobatics with somersaults and backflips." After the show, the surgeons and physicians were at liberty to poke, prod and inspect the twins. The surgeons made straight for the connecting ligament which contained the mystery of their body, and they fondled the flesh while musing on the possibility of surgical separation. Not being able to comprehend fully the nature of the twins’ abnormality made the groping so enthralling: the enigma of their exceptional physiology engendered excitement and debate. The medical gentlemen subsequently signed a statement testifying to the integrity of Chang and Eng’s performance, praising the ‘remarkable and interesting youths’, the reliability of the performance, ‘in no respect deceptive’, and emphasising the respectability of the show, ‘nothing whatever, offensive to delicacy’. (1) This statement was published on the first page of the twins’ exhibition pamphlet, which was sold when the public poured into their freak show. A personal statement by Joshua Brookes, a leading London anatomist, was included on the first page: "Having seen and examined the two Siamese Youths, Chang and Eng, I have great pleasure in affirming they constitute a most extraordinary Lusus Natuare; the first instance I have ever seen of a living double child; they being totally devoid of deception, afford a very interesting spectacle, and are highly deserving of public patronage. " (2) Chang and Eng the Siamese twins, aged eighteen, with badminton rackets. Coloured engraving by JLB, 1829. Credit: Wellcome Collection. A reciprocal relationship between medicine and freakery had been established. On the one hand, the managers of Chang and Eng benefited from these medical endorsements. At the time, medicine was slowly modernizing and becoming more professional, gaining social respectability and cultural authority, so these attributes were transferred onto Chang and Eng’s freak show. The display of deformity was often associated with lowclass itinerant fairs, so this backing from medicine
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