- Who
- Chang and Eng Bunker
- What
- first
- Where
- (Meklong)
- When
Conjoined twins derive the name Siamese from the celebrated Chang and Eng ("Left" and "Right" in Thai) born at Meklong on 11 May 1811 of Chinese parents. They were joined by a cartilaginous band at the chest. Having taken on the name Bunker, they married (in April 1843) the Misses Sarah and Adelaide Yates of Wilkes County, North Carolina, USA, and fathered 10 and 12 children respectively. They died within three hours of each other on 17 January 1874, aged 62 years 251 days.
Chang and Eng were discovered and toured as curiosities by the British merchant Robert Hunter. After their contract with Hunter expired, the twins took themselves on the road and, after a stop in North Carolina in 1839, decided to call the place home and adopt their American surname.
The 12.5-cm (5-in) band of skin and cartilage that connected the twins could easily be divided surgically today - their livers were fused, but each was fully formed and easily seperable - but was inconceivable at the time.
Chang and Eng were not, of course, the first ever instance of conjoined twins. The earliest depiction of the condition dates back to a Neolithic statue found in Anatolia of two ample women joined at the hip.
