Three-Eyed Man Bill Dax. The four-eyed boy has a twin brother. The famous four-eyed card sharper and the male Cyclops

Artists and sculptors reveal to the world the beauty of the human body. Their works are attractive, wonderful, ideal. But what should those people do who not only do not meet recognized standards of beauty, but are also so ugly in appearance that they are scary to look at? The anomalies of the human body are terrifying, and at the same time attractive. That is why the thematic exhibition of the St. Petersburg Wax Museum is very popular among viewers.

Kunstkamera and anomalies of the human body

In Russia, as you know, the first “cabinet of curiosities,” or, more simply, the Kunstkamera, was opened. This museum can be considered the first exhibition that showed human mutations and anomalies to a wide range of viewers. The anatomical section of the Kunstkamera became perhaps the most famous, because in it visitors could see not only a two-headed lamb, which in itself is already interesting, but also human babies, fused bodies. In addition, there was a child cyclops, and a baby with a mermaid tail, and children who died immediately after birth with terribly disfigured heads.

Peter I was very interested in the anomalies of the human body and the reasons why all sorts of deformities arise. The Emperor held conversations with foreign anatomists, marveled at their stories and at the exhibits preserved for many years in transparent vessels, through the purchase of which he replenished the collection of his Kunstkamera. Peter the Great also ordered wax copies of those rare monsters that he could not get for various reasons. And it was thanks to Peter that the art of creating wax figures came to Russia.

After the revolution, this craft was forgotten for a long time, and only at the end of the 20th century craftsmen from the city of Lomonosov, near St. Petersburg, revived the art of creating realistic human figures from wax.

Wax museums

The most famous exhibition of wax figures is the museum. Expositions operate all over the world and in some of them there are “cabinets of horrors”, in which figures of real-life maniacs and murderers are presented.

In Russia, the most famous wax museum is in St. Petersburg. It is precisely this that will be discussed further, because the exhibition “Russian Panopticon: Disasters of the Human Body” is especially interesting to us.

What will surprise you at the Russian Panopticon?

This exhibition truly surprises, frightens, and bewilders at the same time. The thing is that its exhibits are wax figures of people with real mutations and deviations. Also presented here are anomalies of the human body embodied by master sculptors from the Guinness Book of Records.

The figures are realistic. These are the same people, only motionless, with their eyes fixed on one distant point. But these wax people are always unusual. Let's talk about the characters present at the exhibition and their pathologies in more detail.

Abnormal growth

As surprising as it may sound, the tallest person in the world is considered to be the Chinese Bao Xishun, whose height is 2.36 m. His parents are quite ordinary people: his father was 1.8 m tall, and his mother was 1.6 m. They are still they don’t fully understand why their son was so “lucky.”

Because of his height, Bao Xishun could not find a life partner for a long time. He got married only at the age of 56, and his chosen one was as much as 70 cm shorter than him. The couple recently had a son, his height and weight are still consistent with the age norm.

Bao Xishun is included in the Book of Records, and his figure made of wax is present in the museum of St. Petersburg. Next to her is the figure of the smallest woman, Pauline Masters, or Princess Pauline, as her friends and relatives called her.

By the age of 18, the girl had grown to 58 cm, her weight was 15 kg. She worked in a circus, where she showed the audience solo dance and acrobatic performances. The audience was fascinated by the girl: in the arena she looked as if she wasn’t bothering her at all, and the grace that filled Pauline’s performances was truly surprising. a real fashionista and had beautiful curvaceous figures. They say she had no end to fans. But her star set very early; Pauline died at the age of 19 from pneumonia.

Buster Simkus: outstanding weight

The fattest man in the world weighed more than a ton and was from Texas. His motto was a simple phrase - live to eat. Every day, Buster's morning began with 40 pancakes and a liter of jam, and then the man moved on to a couple of dozen meat steaks with a vegetable side dish and his favorite sweets. He ate all day, because eating food became his main occupation. And he could afford to live like this, because Buster Simkus inherited a good inheritance from his parents.

In 2005, the fattest man in the world died. He was only 40 years old.

The famous four-eyed card sharper and the male Cyclops

Many abnormalities of the human body are associated with an increase or decrease in the number of organs. And the organs of vision are no exception.

Thus, John Stalker was known as the Four-Eyed Sharper. He actually had four eyes and made his living as a card player. His organs of vision were located in pairs, one above the other. Interestingly, Stalker could look in several directions at once.

The black man-Cyclops Carlos Sieira had one eye located directly above the bridge of his nose. The place where the eyes are usually located on the face was simply covered with skin. The man had no problems with vision, and one of his eyes saw well. a secluded lifestyle, he was repeatedly offered to act in films, but the Cyclops man did not give his consent. He lived for 32 years.

Pig Woman and Mule Woman

Do you remember the American comedy about the enchanted girl Penelope? So, this heroine had a real prototype - Miraida Portland. She was born in Holland to completely normal parents and had a pig's snout instead of a nose. Miraida's mother and father were rich and were able to give their daughter a good upbringing and education. The girl got married and even gave birth to two healthy children. This is exactly the case when the fairy tale about Penelope ended well.

Another woman whose fate turned out quite happily, despite her deformity, is the mule woman Grace McDanel. Her disease is called and is characterized by abnormal development of blood vessels and mental retardation. But in Grace's case there was a violation of the facial structure, which was very rare with this syndrome. The mule woman married three times, and from her last marriage she had a normal child.

Museum curator and other exhibits

The Museum of Anomalies of the Human Body has one special exhibit among its exhibits - the figure of the crab-man Foma Ignatiev. This man, back in the time of Peter I, worked as a living exhibit of the Kunstkamera and received good money for it - 100 rubles a month. Thomas the Crab Man was called because his hands and feet had two long fused fingers that resembled claws.

The museum has other notable exhibits: a woman with huge silicone breasts, a man without arms or legs, Siamese twins, a bearded woman and a birdman. Also interesting is Edward Mordrake, a musician with a good and evil face.

By the way, there is one legend about Edward. She is described in "Freak Show", the fourth season of the series "American Horror Story". According to legend, Mordrake, accompanied by ghostly shadows, takes away sinful, desperate souls. But this happens only once a year, on the night when the dead walk freely on the earth.

You can learn about how people with physical disabilities lived in the last century from the film “Freaks” directed by Tod Browning. The film tells about the everyday life of a freak show, about love, envy and the hardships of everyday life that befall those who, by the will of fate, are different from ordinary people.

The anomalies of the human body are a heartbreaking sight. But some people with physical deformities have lived happy lives. And perhaps many of us have something to learn from them.

The orphan, who had never known his father's protection and care, received a gift from the president on February 23, Defender of the Fatherland Day.

Pasha believed in fairy tales most of all

A letter to Moscow, to the president, Pasha Korchagin, the only person in the country born with four and blind eyes, dictated to his mother a little over a year ago.

Then the despair was just going off scale. The wind whistled across the barracks floor so hard that even in felt boots my feet were freezing. And the stove, which burst in 40-degree frost and was greased with clay, was bursting at the seams.

34-year-old Nadezhda Korchagina, Pasha’s mother, having decided with her son to ask for help from the president himself, sat down to write a letter, and recalls that she left her tears “behind the scenes”:

Pavlik celebrates a housewarming party with his mother, sister Snezhana and niece Anya. Photo: Larisa MAKSIMENKO

It’s impossible to describe how the old stove exploded due to the continuous fire, how I went to clear a two-meter snowdrift, having noticed since the summer that there was clay on the surface, how my hands became icy, how I hollowed out that clay and carried it to the cooled barracks, coated the stove... .

And I wrote to the president, together with Pasha: “Dear Dmitry Anatolyevich. I am writing to you with a big request. I am an unhappy mother raising two children alone. One child is disabled since childhood. My son was born with 4 eyes. The husband abandoned the child. I have been raising my son alone for 15 years now. We have been on the waiting list for housing for the 11th year now, but there has been no progress. The barracks were built in the 30s. There are holes all around, it's very cold. The stove cannot withstand heavy loads and breaks down... We go with the child twice a year for operations, where his vision is gradually restored. After each operation it is necessary that he does not catch a cold. But there are no conditions at home... Dmitry Anatolyevich, help! God bless you!"

Pasha is the only child in the country born with four eyes. Photo: Larisa MAKSIMENKO

... More than anyone else in the Korchagin family, Pasha believed in the fairy tale, in the fact that the president himself would respond and help.

And soon an answer came from the presidential administration that they would provide housing. Then, as the Belov mayor’s office clarified, they decided to allocate part of the former children’s library in the city center for an apartment for the four-eyed child.

Months passed. And finally, on the eve of February 23, 16-year-old Pasha with his mother and younger, 11-year-old sister Snezhana moved from the barracks to a renovated, bright two-room apartment.

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A Kuzbass boy with four eyes is celebrating a housewarming party in an apartment donated by the President.Larisa MAKSIMENKO

Housewarming

Having crossed the threshold of the “presidential” apartment, placing the most precious things on the sunlit kitchen window sill - the family icon and the main saucepan, the children began to rush around the rooms, laughing and rejoicing, as the echo under the high ceiling rejoices with them.

And their mother, not noticing the tears, admitted:

I was able... I raised the children alone. Although at the maternity hospital they tried to persuade me to give up my son. After all, my husband was “turned upside down” when he saw Pasha for the first time in the maternity hospital. He immediately accepted him as a monster with 4 blind eyes. And he gave me an ultimatum: “Either I, or THIS, choose!” I chose my son. So what if he has an ordinary pair of eyes – gray. And the second pair - blue eyes - was located at an angle, above the first, until surgeons removed the extra eyes at two months. And all the same, my son was, is and will be the best child in the world!

Pavlik lived in this dilapidated barracks for 16 years and, if he had not turned to the president for help, he would have stood in line for another 16 years. Photo: Larisa MAKSIMENKO

Together with Pavlik, my mother went through everything: gossip about the “son of an alien,” lack of money and loneliness. There was a moment when, completely tired of evil tongues, Nadezhda, in order to prove that she did not carry the “four-eyed gene” and that his father, who served in the missile units, was to blame for Pasha’s illness, gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Snezhana, from another man... And later - she documented to the district that she was supposed to have twins, but there was a glitch and only one son was born. He got extra eyes and a second set of veins in his legs, as an ultrasound showed, from his underdeveloped twin brother.

All the years I lived with one dream, that Pavlik would become an ordinary boy and receive his sight. And three years ago, the famous Ufa doctor Ernst Muldashev decided to give Pasha sight,” says his mother. – After a series of operations, Pasha began to see a little. So much so that, with his nose buried in the Primer, he learned to read. Not in Braille. And now he is studying in the third grade according to the usual - sighted - program... But progress would have gone faster if I had not had to take my operated son home, over and over again, to an ice-cold barracks. After the operation, Pasha couldn’t get sick, but in the barracks there was no escape from it... And then we wrote to the president.

...Before February 23, Pasha-four-eyed’s mother had a prophetic dream - that they were given the keys to the apartment. In the morning - she told the dream - the neighbors in the barracks did not believe her. And by lunchtime I received a call from the administration:

Come get the keys.

The Korchagin family is in a new apartment. Photo: Larisa MAKSIMENKO

The four-eyed boy has a twin brother

Even in the womb, the twins grew together not only in their bodies, but also in their souls. Two brothers live in the same body for thirteen years, speaking in different voices. Doctors examining a boy born with four eyes and...

Shrouded in rumors that his dad is an alien, they got to the bottom of the amazing, but still earthly origin of the “four eyes”.

Pavlik Korchagin turned out to have doubled not only his eyes, but also other organs. Nature was preparing for the birth of twins, but in the end it “packed” everything into one plump baby.

Ultrasound examination shocked doctors: the boy has two “sets” of veins inside

Twins

Pavlik’s mother has long felt that an unborn twin brother “lives” inside her son

...At two months old, Kemerovo ophthalmological surgeons, very worried and worried that the baby would not survive the operation, removed Pasha’s third and fourth eyes with long red eyelashes (they were located between the eyebrows and a pair of ordinary eyes). The extra eyes left scars.

13 years ago Pasha was born with 4 eyes. Then the extra eyes were removed

Brother

Nadezhda Korchagina prays for the health of her son

Pavlik has white hair on one half of his head and red hair on the other.

Unique Zita and Gita

Ernst Muldashev will help Pasha

The famous Russian ophthalmologist Ernst Muldashev recently invited Pavlusha for a consultation to decide on the operation and help Pasha regain his sight. Now running to doctors, taking tests and undergoing an in-depth medical examination for a trip to Muldashev, the “four-eyed” man again caused shock among the doctors.

Having complained about his right leg, which suddenly began to swell and hurt, the “four-eyed one”, having received a referral for an ultrasound of his legs, stomped to the diagnostic center. And three hours later, half the hospital came running there: an ultrasound showed that the “four-eyed” one had doubling veins in his legs, that is, he had an additional, second set of veins!

The doctors couldn’t believe their eyes, they said that this couldn’t happen,” says Pavlik’s mother. “Then I told them Pasha’s story, about the removal of an extra pair of eyes, showed him two-colored hair, two-colored eyebrows, and the doctors suggested that all this, including double veins, came from his twin brother, who for some reason was never born.

When Pasha grows up, it will be possible to conduct an even more in-depth examination, and, as doctors say, he may well have two brains, two hearts...

It's incredible, but a brother lives in him. My child is twins. I've always felt this way.

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The anomalies of the human body simultaneously attract and repel. On the one hand, at all times there were those who liked to stare at freaks, to whom fate usually left no other choice but to amuse the audience at the circus. On the other hand, some defects can be practically invisible to others and give people with congenital anomalies a chance to live a normal life without being the center of attention of curious people. A person may not even know about them for a long time - for example, that his heart is on the right side.

Is it true, Bill Dax, who lived in the second half of the 19th century, could not hide the peculiarities of his appearance. They were, as they say, obvious. Dax remained in history as “the man with three eyes.”

Possessing a congenital deformity, he followed in the footsteps of many of his “brothers in misfortune”, becoming a circus performer - a juggler, magician, acrobat, and talented actor. He owed his unusual face to a congenital anomaly that created two incomplete faces on his head; Dax had three eyes, two noses, and a large mouth divided by a cleft lip. His favorite pastime was playing cards, and the three-eyed man's disposition was surprisingly sociable and pleasant. The circus performer had many fans, and female fans too. They tell how one lady, who decided to get to know the unusual artist better, snuck into his dressing room. Having waited for Dax, she looked at him... and fell unconscious. Bill was very worried about this.

Bill Dax lived to be 46 years old. The incorrigible ugliness certainly left its psychological imprint on him. He committed suicide.

Today we learn about what a three-eyed man looked like from drawings of the last century. His image has been recreated in many wax museums, including the famous opening day of Madame Tussauds.

And this, of course, is far from the only hero with an unusual appearance captured in wax. Those who are curious will find next to him the four-eyed Johnny Stoker, whose pairs of eyes were located on top of each other, and Edward Mordrake, a man with two faces, and the rhinoceros man, who once refused to have a callus removed on the bridge of his nose and preferred to perform in circus, and a girl with a pig's neck instead of a nose, who lived for 25 years and even managed to be married.

We walked and walked around Odessa and came across an exhibition at the St. Petersburg wax museum, which attracted us with the loud title “Disasters of the Human Body”. Listen, a really interesting exhibition! A kind of cabinet of curiosities, but in wax. Many of the exhibits are immature Siamese twins, but there are completely inexplicable anomalies. Interestingly, most of the anomalies lived quite a long life.

Some stories are so amazing that they are immediately etched in my memory. Here is one of the most famous two-headed people - Pascual Pinon, who was called the Two-Headed Mexican.

John Eckhart (20th century), who was called "Half the Guy" - the "failed" twin of his normal brother. John's lower body was completely missing. Despite this, he was always in a good mood and people loved him; he was a circus acrobat. But his ordinary full-fledged brother ended his life much earlier as a drunken alcoholic.

Remember the movie about the pig girl Penelope? Its authors were probably inspired by the amazing story of this English lady Miraida Portland. For some unknown reason, normal parents suddenly gave birth to a daughter with a pig's snout. Her parents - Victorian Catholics - raised their daughter to be pious, economical and modest. Therefore, it is not surprising that they even managed to get their daughter married. True, the female pig lived for a very short time - up to 25 years.

The hairiest man is Fyodor Petrov (19th century). Pay attention to his expressive eyes.

Lilliputian brothers John and Greg Rice are the smallest people in the world (86 cm). They married successfully and own a company that deals with real estate and television production. They seem to be the richest twins in the world.

The most terrible and striking exhibit of the exhibition is the bird-man - the jester of King Louis (which one, unfortunately, was not indicated). However, it is no secret that monarchs used to love to mock people, disfiguring their appearance. Let's remember Hugo's Gwynplaine. So they made fun of this more abruptly. They removed his lower jaw, one finger at a time, stretched out his ears and nose and turned him into this monster. Brrr!

Cancer Man Foma Ignatiev was a caretaker in Peter the Great's Cabinet of Curiosities.

Another horror is Grace McDanel - the mule woman. She had no skin, and her whole body was like solid meat. This flaw did not prevent her (attention!) from getting married THREE TIMES and giving birth to a completely normal son.

A Parisian clochard who lived under a bridge. He had slightly large arms and legs. For obvious reasons, he walked barefoot. It was believed that giving him a penny was good luck.

This yogi's hand is forever frozen in meditation.

This is Graves' disease.

And this is a man with four eyes. The famous card sharper.

Cleopatra's favorite Cyclops.

Three-Eyed Man Bill Dax (19th century). Circus acrobat, juggler, magician. Had many fans. One day the lady decided to meet him personally and came to his dressing room. But when she saw him up close, she immediately fainted. Bill was very worried.

Rhinoceros Man. By the end of his life, the horn had grown to 30 cm.

This is such a cute little girl.

And this is a man with two faces, Edward Mordrake. He was an excellent violinist, and when he began to play, the face at the back of his head grimaced and opened his eyes. Mordrake hated and feared his second face. He said that it whispered terrible advice to him and asked the doctors to rid him of the second person. But no one dared to undertake such a complex operation. Then at 23, Edward tried to shoot himself in the backside, but, of course, he also killed himself.

Well, who doesn’t know Lolo Ferrari - the bustiest woman on the planet.

The fattest man on the planet, Buster Simkus, weighed 1 ton 141 kg. Also a famous character.

The tallest Chinese man (height - 2.36 m) and the smallest woman (55 cm, 15 kg). Born to alcoholic parents. Her father took her to drinking establishments, she danced and they gave him a bottle. But one winter, a drunken father dropped 19-year-old Princess Pauline, as she was called, into a snowdrift; she fell ill and died of pneumonia.