Historic: Two-headed child's fascinating story of 1738 still amazes Doctors today

The fascinating yet tragic story of a two-headed child born in Bengal in 1783 continues to amaze doctors today with its incredible details of how the child's two heads functioned independently yet with some shared sensations.

The child's mother, after a difficult delivery attended by a horrified midwife, managed to keep her son alive despite his condition and the midwife's attempts to throw him into a fire.

According to a tweet by Historic Vids on Monday, May 28, realizing the potential earnings from public interest in her son, the mother brought him to Calcutta, a city in Eastern India, now known as Kolkata, where people paid to see the rare two-headed child.

What amazed medical observers at the time was the independent functions of the two heads - one head could sleep while the other remained awake, one head could cry while the other smiled yet both heads experienced pain in the same way.

Tragically, the young child - who would have provided invaluable insight into his rare craniopagus parasiticus condition - died at the age of four after being bitten by a cobra while his mother fetched water.

An examination after his death revealed that each head had its own brain and blood supply, yet the child had not suffered from any other illnesses during his short life.

The child's preserved skull can now be seen at the Hunterian Museum in London, a reminder of the mysteries that still surround this extremely rare condition even today.