Conjoined twins
Date
22 October 1670
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p95a
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 154mm
width (page): 174mm
width (page): 174mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Drawing of a pair of conjoined twins lying on a bed with a large pillow. From a letter by the physician William Durston dated 28 October 1670 at Plymouth to Timothy Clarke, reporting the dissection of the conjoined twin born to Grace Bastard, a wife of a shoemaker 'of honest repute' and mother of five. This is the drawing done 'by a youth' at Plymouth that accompanied the original letter (EL/D1/15/003). Durston's letter was read at the meeting of the Royal Society on 10 November 1670, and printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, vol. 5, no. 65 (1670) with this image.
A coloured copy of this image may be found at LBC/4/130a.
A coloured copy of this image may be found at LBC/4/130a.
Transcription
At the top, 'Fig. 1' crossed out.
At the bottom of the drawing, 'This is the likest, but the limbs & head are too big.'
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
At the bottom of the drawing, 'This is the likest, but the limbs & head are too big.'
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 10 November 1670, ‘Mr. Oldenburg read a letter written by Dr. Durston of Plymouth to Dr. Timothy Clarke, dated 28 Octob. 1670, containing an account of a monstrous birth at Plymouth, with some anatomical observations thereupon’ (Birch 2:451).
William Durston to Timothy Clarke, 'A narrative of a monstrous birth in Plymouth, October 22, 1670', Phil. Trans. vol. 5, no. 65 (November 1670), pp. 2096-98 (ref. to 'table 2, figure 1' at p. 2096).
William Durston to Timothy Clarke, 'A narrative of a monstrous birth in Plymouth, October 22, 1670', Phil. Trans. vol. 5, no. 65 (November 1670), pp. 2096-98 (ref. to 'table 2, figure 1' at p. 2096).
Associated place