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Radica and Doodica

Radica and Doodica

Radica and Doodica (1888-1903) were conjoined twins and sideshow performers.

Medical condition

Radica and Doodica were xiphopagus twins, joined at the chest by a band of cartilage, similar to Chang and Eng.

Life

Radica and Doodica were born in Orissa, India in 1888. While the birth of conjoined twins was often viewed as highly unusual, the superstitious residents of their village saw the girls as ‘symbols of divine wrath’ and chased the family out of town. Their father wanted to separate the twins himself and was about to do so when a local official stepped in and rescued the girls, turning them over to a local temple. The monks of the temple looked after the twins and gave them their names.

In 1893 they were purchased from their parents by Captain Colman, a showman from London, who took them to Europe to be exhibited, often paired with another Colman prodigy, a dwarf billed as the smallest man in the world, Peter the Small.. In 1902, Doodica developed tuberculosis and the sisters were separated in Paris by Dr. Eugene-Louis Doyen (1859-1916) with the hope of saving Radica. Dr. Doyen was a pioneering medical filmmaker and filmed the twins' surgery as La Separation de Doodica-Radica. Though the operation was considered a success at first, Doodica died shortly after separation, and Radica also succumbed to tuberculosis in 1903, having lived the last year of her life in a Paris sanitorium.