Chang and Eng Bunker were Siamese-American conjoined twins.
They were born in Siam on the 11th May 1811.
Chang and Eng were joined at the waist by a tubular band of tissue about 3.25 inches long and about 1.5 inches in diameter.
The twins were born to a half-Chinese mother and a Chinese father.
Their mother reportedly said their birth was no more difficult than that of their other several siblings’.
Their father, Ti-eye, was a fisherman, who died when the twins were young, possibly in a smallpox epidemic that ran through the area in 1819.
Chang and Eng were 17 years old when they traveled to the United States.
They arrived in Boston on August 16, 1829.
They were soon inspected by many physicians.
Their arrival was reported in newspapers with varying degrees of racial stereotypes and falsehoods.
After leaving the United States, they toured major cities in Britain, and by the time they returned to New York in March 1831, the twins had gained some skill in English reading, writing, and speaking.
When touring in cities, the twins stayed at hotels, where they charged audiences to attend their “freak show”.
The twins performed physical feats, running and doing somersaults, swimming, playing checkers, and doing parlor tricks.
An emphasis was placed on their exoticness, they wore pigtails and dressed in “Oriental” clothing.
Their fame propelled the expression ” Siamese Twins” to become synonymous for conjoined twins in general.
They were widely exhibited as curiosities, and were “two of the nineteenth century’s most studied human beings”
In 1843, Chang and Eng married, sisters Adelaide and Sarah Yates, daughters of a respected local landowner.
The two couples – and they were unquestionably, two distinct couples, lived in separate homes, with the brothers alternating half weeks with each of their Wives.
In 1844, each wife gave birth.
While no details survive about how the couples conducted their intimacy, it’s worth noting that the brothers’ first children were born six days apart.
They would go on to have an astounding 21 children between them.
In early October 1860 they signed with famed showman P.T Barnum and exhibited in Barnum’s American Museum in New York City.
They performed for several distinguished guests, including The Prince of Wales.
By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, the twins’ finances had taken a hit, so they decided to resume touring.
Chang and Eng made a trip to Britain in 1868–69, seeing physicians and chatting in exhibitions.
Chang’s daughter Nannie, and Eng’s daughter Kate, both in their 20s, also came on the trip.
In 1870, Chang suffered a stroke that paralyzed his right side, the side that was closest to his brother.
Eng nursed him back to relative health, as Chang tied up his right leg in a sling and, using both a crutch and his brother’s arm, went about his daily routine.
Chang never returned to full health, and developed a vicious cough, he also took to drinking.
Eng never drank and never shared any alcohol effects when Chang dived into his tipsiness bliss.
Chang and Eng did consult with the best physicians to be examined, with one burning question:
Could they be surgically separated?
However, at this point in time, Chang and Eng categorically refused to think about medical intervention.
Their very peculiar physique was never a handicap and although they were connected by the sternum, the twins were independent men.
But it became clear for the pair that two linked bodies aging at differing rhythms, would be an exhausting problem.
In the last years of their life, with the knowledge that it might reach an end soon, the two became almost obsessed by the idea of a possible separation.
Each dreading the moment when one would have to carry on with his brother’s corpse at his side.
Tied up for life, Chang and Eng desired their own deaths, separately.
Sadly, the physician’s answers carried no hopes, the procedure would likely result in a tremendous loss of blood and kill them both.
Hopeless and frustrated, Chang and Eng kept having arguments with each other.
Early in the morning of 17th January 1874, one of Eng’s sons checked on the sleeping twins.
The boy reportedly said to Eng-
“Uncle Chang is dead,”
Eng responded,
“Then I am going too!”
Over the next hour, Eng suffered intense pain and distress, a cold sweat covering his body.
The only notice he took of his dead twin, was to move his body nearer to him.
Two-and-a-half hours after losing his brother, Eng Bunker died, they were 62 years old.
Once Chang and Eng died, physicians rushed on the remains.
The bodies were sent to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia to be dissected, studied, and photographed.
Their autopsy revealed that part of their livers was connected.
Whenever a separation might have occurred, there was no chance that they would have survived it.
After the exam, the bodies were cast facing each other, and are now on display, as are their livers, in the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.
This cast exists as a virtual memorial for the two legendary figures that were Chang and Eng, the original Siamese Twins.
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