Edward Mordake - Was he truly real?

The curious case of Edward Mordake is probably unknown to most people. He was a man that lived in the 19 century and was born with an odd deformity. He had an extra face on the back of his head which was able to laugh or cry, although there isn’t any proof that it actually expressed these emotions. He committed suicide when he was 23 and lived totally isolated for most part of his life.

The face on the back of his head seemed to be that of a woman, in Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine 

  we are told that I was a beautiful female face “lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil”. Apparently it smiled when he cried and the eyes followed the movements of people around him. According to some sources  it seems that the face couldn’t have been the one of a woman because parasitic twins are always the same sex, which is correct. So, it seems that this whole story about the face being a beautiful woman was just a way to make things more spectacular.

Another interesting but highly implausible thing was the fact that the face seemed to be speaking, but nothing could be heard. However, Edward could hear what it was saying and he begged the doctors to remove the face from his head because it talked to him forever about “things from hell”. But the surgeons refused to remove it because it was too risky.

He used poison to commit suicide and asked in his suicide letter that the face would be removed before burial “ lest it continues its dreadful whisperings in my grave”.

So is the story true? That’s hard to decide, especially since there is no historical evidence. There might have been a man with a parasitic twin on the back of his head, but the fact that it spoke is definitely something that was made up to make the story seem more spectacular.

For more information on Edward Mordake and his condition, check out this cool article here. 

Further reading about deformities and anomalies: Gould, George M. & Walter L. Pyle, Anomolies and Curiosities of Medicine, New York: 1896

(ANOMALIES and CURIOSITIES of MEDICINE (Annotated)- kindle edition; Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine - paperback edition )

Awards, German architecture, neuron control and how to annoy your teacher

Hello everybody, I'm sorry I was so slow this week but I've been a bit sick lately. This was good but I also slept for about 24 hours I think, which is never productive. Unfortunately, my google reader has 375 unread items, so I have a lot of reading and commenting to do.

First of all I would like to thank Sie for her award. You can check out her other websites: this and this. She is a really special person. Sorry for not being able to thank you sooner dear :(

Let's see what interesting internet places I can recommend you this week. The first one is this  and it's about German architecture. I'm obsessed by everything German so if you are like me, you will love it too. Also, if you are an over-thinking freak like me,  read this.

Another cool article I read a while ago was Neuron Control written by Sarang Mangi. A great article about  activating specific neurons.

If you want to read something funny here are 45 ways to annoy your teacher. Now I'm seriously thinking of riding a horse to uni. :D

Now, let's see some studies: people learn while they sleep, drinking a lot of coffee and depression , low B12 vitamin levels shrink your brain, if you were planning on taking some hallucinogenic drugs you will need to rethink that because a single dose leads to lasting personality changes, and don't forget to drink red wine to lower your breast cancer risk. 

Don't forget to check out this mind blowing article about people with schizophrenia. Apparently living in a developed country lowers your chances to recover.