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Updated: June 24, 2025
Diphallic terata. Fetus in fetu, and dermoid cysts. Hermaphrodites. CLASS I. Triple Monsters. Haller and Meckel were of the opinion that no cases of triple monsters worthy of credence are on record, and since their time this has been the popular opinion. Surely none have ever lived. Licetus describes a human monster with two feet and seven heads and as many arms.
In a similar case, spoken of by Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, the two organs were also separate, but urine and semen escaped sometimes from one, sometimes from both. The most celebrated of all the diphallic terata was Jean Baptista dos Santos, who when but six months old was spoken of by Acton. His father and mother were healthy and had two well-formed children.
Besides such cases as the foregoing, we find the medieval writers report likely instances of terata, as, for instance, Rhodiginus, who speaks of a monster in Italy with two heads and two bodies; Lycosthenes saw a double monster, both components of which slept at the same time; he also says this creature took its food and drink simultaneously in its two mouths.
So credulous were people at this time that even a man so well informed as Pare believed in the possibility of these last two, or at least represented them as facts. At this time were also reported double hermaphroditic terata, seemingly without latter-day analogues.
If this be so, then the teratologic difficulty is removed, for the case becomes perfectly comparable with the well-known but rare type of double terata known as the pygopagous twins, which is placed by Taruffi with that of the ischiopagous twins in the group dicephalus lecanopagus. "Pygopagous twins are fetuses united together in the region of the nates and having each its own pelvis.
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