Ilona and Judit Gófitz

The native form of this personal name is Gófitz Ilona and Gófitz Judit. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Ilona and Judit Gófitz (Hungarian: Gófitz Ilona és Judit; in contemporary publications: Helen and Judith of Szőny),^[1] also known as the Hungarian Sisters, were conjoined twins from Szőny, Hungary who lived from 19 October 1701 to 8 February 1723.^[2] The sisters, who were pygopagus (joined at the pelvis),^[3] were examined by doctors and exhibited to curious crowds throughout Europe.^[4][5] At the age of nine, the pair retired to a convent in Presburg, Kingdom of Hungary, where they spent the rest of their lives.^[6] They died within hours of each other.

Judith and Helen of Szony

After seeing them in London, Alexander Pope wrote a poem about the sisters:^[7][8]

Two sisters wonderful to behold, who have thus grown as one,
That naught their bodies can divide, no power beneath the sun.
The town of Szoenii gave them birth, hard by far-famed Komorn,
Which noble fort may all the arts of Turkish sultans scorn.
Lucina, woman's gentle friend, did Helen first receive;
And Judith, when three hours had passed, her mother's womb did leave.

One urine passage serves for both; one anus, so they tell;
The other parts their numbers keep, and serve their owners well.
Their parents poor did send them forth, the world to travel through,
That this great wonder of the age should not be hid from view.
The inner parts concealed do lie hid from our eyes, alas!
But all the body here you view erect in solid brass.

References

1. Oláh, Róbert (15 July 2013). (in Hungarian). Református Kollégium Nagykönyvtára. Archived from the original on 26 December 2014. Retrieved 26 December 2014.
2. Van der Weiden, Robin M. F. (1 August 2008). "Disclosure of an unknown portrait of the Hungarian conjoined twin sisters Helen and Judith (1701–23)". Journal of Medical Biography. 16 (3): 173–174. doi:10.1258/jmb.2007.007039. PMID 18653840.
3. Simpson, James V. (1869). "A Lecture On The Siamese And Other Viable United Twins". The British Medical Journal. 1 (428): 229–233. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.428.229. JSTOR 25216259. PMC 2259689. PMID 20745452.
4. Miss Cellania (27 February 2014). "10 Stories of Conjoined Twins". Mental Floss. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
5. "The Hungarian Sisters, Helen and Judith". Sideshow World. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
6. Curzon, Catherine (19 October 2014). "A Tale of Conjoined Twins". A Covent Garden Gilflurt's Guide to Life.
7. Huang, Yunte (2018). Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History. Liveright Publishing. p. 21. ISBN 9780871404473.
8. "The Hungarian Sisters". The Human Marvels. February 2006.

 

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Further reading

• Fisher, G. J. (1866). "Diploteratology". Transactions of the New York State Medical Society: 207–296 – via HathiTrust.
• Van der Weiden, Robin M. F.; Clausberg, Karl (2015). "The Conjoined Twin Sisters Helen and Judith (1701–1723) and Their Pictorial Impact in Later 18th-Century Science". Twin Research and Human Genetics. 18 (4): 419–424. doi:10.1017/thg.2015.40. PMID 26133671. S2CID 31847060.