The inspiring story of Myrtle Corbin with conjoined twinning.
Myrtle Corbin was born in Lincoln County, TN, in 1868 with a medical condition known as dipygus, resulting in having two pelvis and four legs.
Doctors concluded her extra legs were supposed to be her twin’s separate legs, who only fully developed down from the waist. The rare conjoined twinning called made her have two different bodies from the core.
Corbin could control her sister’s leg, but they were weak and could not be used for walking — interestingly, her twin sister’s legs had only three toes on each foot. The clubbed foot lady had an overall difficult time walking as she owned only one usable leg.
What Caused Corbin to Develop Such a Rare Medical Condition?
Doctors couldn’t explain. She was simply a miracle. Analyzing her birth conditions, doctors found no abnormalities — there was nothing peculiar about her delivery, except that she was initially a breech presentation that later orientated normally. Corbin already had healthy four brothers and sisters, proving the abnormality was not genetic.
Myrtle Corbin owned sound health and natural beauty. In the 1889 British Medical Journal, Lewis Whaley describes her as a five feet high girl with fair skin, curly hair, and blue eyes.
Corbin’s Rise to Fame at 13
At the age of thirteen, the world became her runway. Her popularity reached heights when she worked with P.T Barnum, followed by Ringling bros and Coney Island.
Often dressing the extra limbs with socks and her one’s with shoes, Corbin used to appear surreal. Her mounting popularity rewarded her with a lucrative package of that era — $450 a week.
What interesting followed were the rival strategies. By using a trick chair and hiding another person to give an illusion of multiple lower limbs — the rivals advertised a fake “four-legged woman.” But people knew Myrtle Corbin was the only Four-Legged Woman who existed.
Marriage & Corbin’s Bizarre Anatomy
At the age of 19, she married James Clinton Bicknell, who insisted on her retiring from the sideshow to start a new life in farms — a true love proving he wasn’t into her for money.
After marriage, the other aspect of Corbin’s bizarre anatomy surfaced — her twin sister was sexually formed, making Myrtle own two vaginas. Her existence revealed more mysteries, strange and interesting oddities when she became pregnant the following year of her marriage.
Dr. Lewis Whaley examined her. She accounted for the pain on the left side, naming worrying symptoms. The doctor revealed she had two uteri, and she was pregnant with her left one.
Myrtle surprise was recorded as follows: reacted with surprise:
“I think you are mistaken; if it had been on my right side, I would come nearer believing it”; The doctor’s session and her comments hinted that Myrtle used her right genitals for coitus.
Sadly, Corbin’s pregnancy offered her significant discomfort, resulting in an abortion in the fourth month. But she recovered soon and gave birth to eight children; later, only four survived. Medical texts claim that she underwent labor from each womb — the strong woman gave birth from both sides.
The 1910 census revealed four surviving children’s names as Nancy Estelle, Francis Clinton, Ruby, and Lillian J.
Strong Woman’s Admiring Comeback in 1909
History doesn’t know much about the specifications of the Bicknell family’s financial circumstances. Still, without a doubt, they severely deteriorated with time such that Myrtle seized her retirement and hopped back into the sideshows.
The girl who left the work was back in the business as a woman at 41. She was seen in Huber’s Museum in New York in 1909.
What was deemed as a temporary struggle seemed to become a permanent event. For five years, Myrtle continued to entertain thousands sometimes in Dreamland Circus Sideshow and other Coney Island times. Soon 1910 enveloped 1915, leaving her with enough money to stop exhibiting.
Luck didn’t spare her for long, as the other time destiny’s attack was not financial but medical. She developed a skin infection in 1928, which simply failed to heal.
Erysipelas, a streptococcal skin infection, was diagnosed of which no cure existed back then — today, the healing is a matter of consuming just a few antibiotics.
After a week of diagnoses, on May 6, 1928, Josephine Myrtle Corbin-Bicknell was pronounced dead in
Cleburne, Texas. There has never been another four-legged woman.
Her family members kept a close eye on her concrete-covered casket to prevent grave robbers from stealing away the corpse.
The private collectors, researchers, and other medical practitioners offered a decent financial compensation of the corpse, upon which the family simply refused and got more careful in their close watch.
Josephine Myrtle Corbin’s story is incredibly inspiring, for she never allowed her circumstance to rule her life. Restricting the deformity to hinder her life view, Myrtle soared ambitiously high and lived every happiness with pride.
Several reports get the taste of Corbin’s personality through her father’s description in the promotional pamphlet that describes Corbin as “gentle of disposition as the summer sunshine and as happy as the day is long.”