Dr Nancy Segal, Guinness World Records’ resident twin expert, says infamous circus owner PT Barnum banned conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker from being surgically separated.
The brothers, widely reported as the world’s first conjoined twins, were behind the coining of the now-mostly unused phrase “Siamese twins” because they were born in Siam, the country now known as Thailand.
Born to Chinese parents on 11 May 1811, they were named Chang and Eng.
The twins were joined from the sternum to the umbilicus by a flexible band about five inches long and became known around the world through their appearances in circuses then known as “freak shows”.
Their career took them to PT Barnum’s American Museum in New York in 1860, where they performed for such distinguished guests as Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales.
Much speculation surrounds whether or not the twins could have been safely separated from one another, but Dr Nancy, a psychology professor at California State University, Fullerton and director and founder of the Twin Studies Center, believes it was a possibility.
During a visit to our London HQ, we took the chance to quiz Nancy on some twin records.
After watching our Curious Casebook episode on Chang and Eng, she said: “It’s my understanding that they could have been separated surgically even then, but that PT Barnum was against it because they were such a great sensation.”
Barnum was rather favourably portrayed by Hugh Jackman in musical film The Greatest Showman, but his reputation was much more questionable in real life.
He has been accused of exploiting people for his own gain.
“Well, anyone of medical interest or human interest is bound to be exploited at some point,” Nancy said.
“I think the twins enjoyed the notoriety too to a certain level but then we saw that they left and wanted to have families.”
Contrary to popular belief, Barnum did not make Chang and Eng's career, they had already become world-famous from their own tours.
They had partially retired and married American sisters Adelaide and Sarah Yates way before they met Barnum.
They went on to father 21 children between them – Chang and Adelaide had 10 while Eng and Sarah had 11.
To this day, they hold the record for most children born to unseparated conjoined twins.
They already had seven children between them when returned to touring in 1849 to support their families financially.
It wasn't until 1860 that their paths crossed with Barnum's and he signed them on a month-long contract.
However, the brothers are believed to have strongly disliked the showman and to have rejected him when he offered them a longer, countrywide tour.
And whether or not the twins could have been separated, it seems they had no desire to do so.
Dr Nancy said: “What’s interesting, which didn’t come out in this film is because they were genetically identical, the children from the two different couples were genetic half siblings because they had genetically identical parents, so they weren’t just cousins, they were genetic half siblings.
“There was one pair of fraternal twins born at some point in history, fairly recently, among their descendants.
“I think what’s so fascinating and kind of curious is that the father of the two sisters objected to his daughters marrying these two, not because they were conjoined but because they were Asian.
“And I think the fact that they were able to have families and carry on like that is great.”
She added: “There are all sorts of human variations, and we have to get used to those and some people might recoil in horror at the idea of identical conjoined twins marrying into their families but it’s a variation on the human being and that’s the way it is.
“People with disabilities lead perfectly normal lives and we have to accept that.”
Chang and Eng died within three hours of each other on 17 January 1874. They were aged 62.
During her visit, Dr Nancy, who teaches developmental psychology and twin studies, watched and shared her thoughts on many more videos we’ve produced about record-breaking twins.
The author, who has nine books in her library so far, also shared her thoughts on the world’s most premature twins.
Adiah and Adrial Nadarajah were born at 22 weeks in Toronto, Canada on 4 March 2022, making them 126 days early.
Nancy, who has many twin projects on the go, including studying the loss of a twin, decision making, personality and social relatedness, praised parents Shakina Rajendram and Kevin Nadarajah after seeing them open up about how doctors gave their twins a 0% chance of survival.
She said: “I think they’ll give hope to other parents of twins and also singletons going into early labour.
“Single births have a much higher rate of lasting a longer time. Twin births are virtually always premature so they are at greater risk. These were very, very early but never the less, twins are always at a greater risk and sometimes they develop certain delays, some of them don’t, it depends.”
She explained further: “Twinning is still relatively rare in humans because the uterus was designed to accommodate one baby, not two.
“Because the human mother is designed to carry one baby at a time this places twins at risk because you run out of space and twins can sometimes compete for nutrition which can put their lives in great jeopardy.”
Nancy also told us about just how rare it is for twins to be born with such vast differences to one another.
We showed her videos of Sienna and Sierra Bernal (USA), who have the greatest height differential in living identical twins (female) with 38 cm (1 ft 3 in) between them, and Michie and Yoshie Kikuchi (Japan), whose 75 cm (2 ft 5.5 in) variation gives them the record for greatest height differential in living non-identical twins (female).
Nancy said of Michie and Yoshie: “The height difference we see in these twins is certainly way beyond the average height difference we see in fraternal twins but we get these big differences sometimes when there is some sort of genetic anomaly or other problem.
“In the natural twinning situation, it is very unlikely to get a height difference like this.”
Sienna and Sierra also hold the record for rarest form of discordant twinning.
And in case you were wondering why Dr Nancy is so fascinated by twins, it’s because she’s one herself.
Nancy has a fraternal twin sister named Anne, and says it was the differences between them that first led her into her studies.
Nancy says she’s shorter than her sister, and while her hair is straight, Anne’s is curly.
While majoring in psychology, Nancy was asked to write a paper about personal adjustment, and thought back to how she felt being separated from her twin at school.
She got an A for the paper and her career as a twin expert began.
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