Two-legged Siamese twins Indonesia's first

JAKARTA (JP): Mujito and Eka, who died Saturday night, were the country's first Siamese twins born with only one pair of legs, the chairman of the Indonesian Medical Association, Azrul Azwar, said yesterday.

"Previously, I have never heard of two-legged Siamese born in this country and such births rarely occur in the world," Azrul said. "Conjoined twins are quite common when a single fertilized egg fails to divide fully into separate twins during the gestation period."

Apart from two perfect heads, Mujito and Eka had separate lungs, spinal cords and stomach but shared a single heart, liver, genitals, a pair of legs and arms.

Azrul told The Jakarta Post that connections at the chest, buttocks and head were common for Siamese twins in Indonesia.

He said Indonesia lacked facilities to deal with Siamese twins joined from the waist down.

Born to a low-income family, the twins would have burdened their family and experienced psychological strain as they grew up, he said.

Life magazine reported similar births in Russia and the United States.

In 1950, Masha and Dasha were born in Moscow with two perfectly good legs and a vestigial third leg. They had separate stomachs and upper intestines which joined to form a single lower intestine and rectum. The girls, who were 16 years old when the magazine published the story, learned to walk when they were five.

The Hensel twins, Brittany and Abigail, seven years old, live in America's Midwest. Their parents feared an operation would endanger the twins' lives.

The twins have two hearts but share a venous system and all organs below the waist. The Hensels started learning to walk when they were 15 months old.

Though the circulatory system is interconnected, the Russian and American twins have separate instincts because their heads and spinal cords do not connect. Both twins also have a single set of reproductive organs.

Time magazine reported a similar case when a medical team at London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital attempted to separate three-year-old Eilish and Katie Holton of Ireland in 1992. Katie died four days later and Eilish lived. (10)