This month's subject:

Craniofacial Duplication (Diprosopus, or Two Faces)

IN THE ARCHIVES:

Hyperdontia
Preserved
Circus Curiosities
Accidental Victim Photos
Head Dents
Ghosts of Alcatraz
Fox Mulder

Above is the "Janus Cat" named Frank and Louie. See more about this cat HERE

Lali Singh, born in India (above).

Although most humans born with this condition do not survive, Tres Johnson (below) has just celebrated his 13th birthday.

WHO WAS THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON WITH CRANIOFACIAL DUPLICATION?

And...did he even exist?

The above is not a photo of Edward Mordake, but a wax interpretation that was supposedly made from eyewitness accounts of people who knew him during his lifetime. No actual photos of Mr. Mordrake exist.

The 1896 medical encyclopedia Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, co-authored by Dr. George M. Gould and Dr. Walter L. Pyle, included an account of Mordake. The account was copied directly from Hildreth's article. However, it was credited only to a "lay source". The encyclopedia describes the basic morphology of Mordake's condition, but it provides no medical diagnosis for the rare deformity. Such a birth defect might have been a form of craniopagus parasiticus (a parasitic twin head with an undeveloped body), or a form of Diprosopus (bifurcated craniofacial duplication), or an extreme form of parasitic twin (an unequal conjoined twin).

As told in Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine:

One of the weirdest as well as the most melancholy stories of human deformity is that of Edward Mordake, said to have been heir to one of the noblest peerages in England. He never claimed the title, however, and committed suicide in his twenty-third year. He lived in complete seclusion, refusing the visits even of the members of his own family. He was a young man of fine attainments, a profound scholar, and a musician of rare ability. His figure was remarkable for its grace, and his face – that is to say, his natural face – was that of an Antinous. But upon the back of his head was another face, that of a beautiful girl, "lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil." The female face was a mere mask, "occupying only a small portion of the posterior part of the skull, yet exhibiting every sign of intelligence, of a malignant sort, however." It would be seen to smile and sneer while Mordake was weeping. The eyes would follow the movements of the spectator, and the lips "would gibber without ceasing." No voice was audible, but Mordake avers that he was kept from his rest at night by the hateful whispers of his "devil twin", as he called it, "which never sleeps, but talks to me forever of such things as they only speak of in Hell. No imagination can conceive the dreadful temptations it sets before me. For some unforgiven wickedness of my forefathers I am knit to this fiend – for a fiend it surely is. I beg and beseech you to crush it out of human semblance, even if I die for it." Such were the words of the hapless Mordake to Manvers and Treadwell, his physicians. In spite of careful watching, he managed to procure poison, whereof he died, leaving a letter requesting that the "demon face" might be destroyed before his burial, "lest it continues its dreadful whisperings in my grave." At his own request, he was interred in a waste place, without stone or legend to mark his grave.

So, was the story of Edward Mordake true or not?

Probably not. A list of reasons why this story is improbable can be found HERE

Snopes also chimes in HERE

WHAT IS CRANIOFACIAL DUPLICATION? (Sometimes called Janus)

Also known as Diprosopus, craniofacial duplication is the medical term used to describe a malformation of the human face, though, in some even rarer cases, there is duplication of the cerebral frontal lobes.

Someone suffering from craniofacial duplication isn’t actually a “conjoined twin” because, in most cases, the abnormality is not the result of the fusion of two embryos. In most cases (but not all), it’s merely a widening of facial features and the wider the features, the more the faces are duplicated.

The rare times this happens, the babies are usually stillborn, and, for one reason or another, occur mainly in India. The most famous of these was Lali Singh who was born in India on March 11, 2008, but died two months later.

Diprosopus often occurs in combination with other congenital disorders, particularly anencephaly, neural tube defect and cardiac malformations. When present, the brain may show abnormalities ranging from partial to complete duplication of brain structures, and/or underdevelopment of brain tissues. Doctors say there’s a 1 in 2.5 million chance of a child being born with Diprosopus.

This anomaly is not normally due to the fusion or incomplete separation of two embryos. It is the result of abnormal activity by the protein SHH (sonic hedgehog).

SHH and its corresponding gene have been found to play an important role in signaling craniofacial patterning during embryonic development. Among other things, SHH governs the width of facial features. In excess it leads to widening of facial features and to duplication of facial structures. The greater the widening, the more structures are duplicated, often in a mirror image form.

Source: Wikipedia

WHAT IS JANUS?

In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings and time. He is usually a two-faced god since he looks to the future and the past. The Romans dedicated the month of January to Janus.

Source: Crystallinks

ANIMALS BORN (AND SURVIVING) WITH TWO FACES ARE FAR MORE COMMON THAN WITH HUMANS