Ronnie and Donnie Galyon are the oldest living set of conjoined twins in the world.
Pathology
The brothers are joined from the sternum to the groin, so they have separate hearts, lungs and stomachs, and share one lower intestine and one set of sexual organs.
Life
Ronnie and Donnie Galyon were born at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, on October 28, 1951, to Wesley and Eileen Galyon. According to Ward Hall, the twins' mother rejected them when they were born, leaving them to be raised by their father, Wesley, and later stepmother Mary. Ronnie and Donnie were kept in the Saint Elizabeth Hospital for 29 months as fascinated doctors observed and worked out if they could be separated. Since the chances of Ronnie surviving a separation were thought to be minimal, Wesley, made the difficult decision to take the twins on the road as a sideshow attraction.
The boys were exhibited in sideshows throughout their childhood in the US and later in Latin America, appearing with Circo Union in Mexico. In the 1980s they were managed by Ward Hall and Chris Christ and appeared with a number of other Hall & Christ freaks in Being Different in 1981. In 1991 Ronnie and Donnie retired aged 39 and bought a two-bedroomed house in Dayton, Ohio, with their sideshow earnings, but are heavily reliant on their younger brother Jim for help. Although they are retired from show business, they occasionally make appearances on television. They appeared on the Jerry Springer Show in 1997, a Discovery Channel documentary in 1998 and a Channel Five documentary in 2009. On December 22, 2010, TLC premiered The World's Oldest Conjoined Twins Move Home, when they moved to a new, more confortable house.