Abby and Brittany Hensel Abby and Brittany Hensel Abigail Loraine Hensel and Brittany Lee Hensel (born March 7, 1990) are American dicephalic parapagus twins; also known as conjoined twins. They are highly symmetric for conjoined twins, giving the appearance of having a single body without marked variation from normal proportions. Each has a separate heart, stomach, spine, pair of lungs, and spinal cord. Each twin controls one arm and one leg. As infants, learning to crawl, walk and clap required them to cooperate. They can eat and write separately and simultaneously. Activities such as running, swimming, hair brushing and driving a car require coordinated
Conjoined twins Two-Headed Nightingale" and appeared with the Barnum Circus. In 1912, they died of tuberculosis, 17 hours apart. Giovanni and Giacomo Tocci, from Locana, Italy, were immortalized in Mark Twain's short story "Those Extraordinary Twins" as fictitious twins Angelo and Luigi. The Toccis, born in 1877, were dicephalus tetrabrachius twins, having one body with two legs, two heads, and four arms. From birth they were forced by their parents to perform and never learned to walk, as each twin controlled one leg (in modern times, physical therapy allows twins like the Toccis to learn to walk on their own). They are