WHEN ONE HEAD WAS BETTER THAN TWO

Grizzled former Fleet Street hack Bill Cranfield thought that he had covered just about every sort of sensational story in the book – but then he went to China to work for Xinhua. Now read on…

Beware of what you ask for. When I was attempting a classic contradiction in terms – trying to teach journalism at Xinhua in Beijing more than half-acentury ago to a class of English-speaking, middle-aged exvictims of the Cultural Revolution – I (who was known as “Comrade Beer”) was asked whether I could convert what had been published as a news story into a feature article. e news item was about a successful operation on a 35-year-old deaf-mute man in Kunming who had been born with two independently operating heads. At that time, it was thought that only three such operations had ever been performed, all on patients much younger and less complicated than this latest case. I knew that asking the Kunming Xinhua branch to follow up would be an exercise in frustration and so I would have to interview the man himself, via at least one translator, probably two.

Nothing for it but to travel to the man’s village myself. is would involve, I was told by my sophisticate metropolitan colleagues, an extremely arduous and possibly perilous journey into the interior… at which point I decided that self-preservation is the better part of valour and that the man and a couple of his relatives should be brought to Kunming, where I – and a female minder/interpreter –subsequently spent long days unravelling the following tale.

A modest proposal

Back in the late 1960s, an enterprising uncle of the man everyone called Two Heads had come across a young woman called Tang Chunchun, who had a badly dis gured hand. He decided she would make an ideal match for his nephew, and duly arranged the wedding.

Tang had tried to tell herself that her groom was a considerate and gentle fellow who would work hard and cherish her. But the thought of making love to him repulsed her. On the wedding night, she grabbed her bridal dress and ed.

Inevitably, her parents sent her back. Two Heads’ family did everything possible to make her happy in her new home. But there was always that ultimate hurdle – if she stayed, sooner or later she would have to consummate the marriage.

To this day, nobody is quite sure how Tang Chunchun died. But her frail body was found washed up in a stream owing into the Yili River, presumed drowned.

Distraught, Two Heads withdrew even further into himself, rarely venturing out except on essential errands, hiding when visitors called and covering his head with a cloth. For the next 10 years he survived in a mental hell, nursing his unimaginable loneliness.

Frosty relations

In the summer of 1979, after a heavy spring frost had badly a ected the harvest, two young relatives called at Two Heads’ house and said they were going to travel to Kunming doing odd jobs along the way, and suggested he go with them. So the trio set o , arriving in Kunming some 40 days later, just a little richer than when they had started out without a penny in their pockets.

However, there were money and time enough to squander on a morning at the zoo. But they had reckoned without the reaction of the citizens of Kunming to seeing someone or something stranger than any of the caged inmates. Just as it looked like a riot might break out, the day was saved by the practical turn of mind of tra c policeman Yu Fang, who calmed the situation and then turned his mind to solving an even greater problem. is, he decided, was a matter for Kumning’s preeminent medical expert, who was just known as Dr Li.

“My rst thought was to try to persuade the man to go into hospital so that we could run some tests, for I felt sure that an operation was practical,” Dr Li told me when I interviewed him. “But his two relations were hesitant. In the end they agreed to leave their address and said they would return to their village to consult with Two Heads’ parents. I received no word from them and as the weeks went by I began to lose hope that we would ever see the man again.

all hospitalisation and treatment fees.

en began the lengthy process of pre-operative analysis and examination, made all the more di cult by the patient’s inability to hear or speak. When confronted with a barium meal, Two Heads ew into a rage as he thought they were trying to poison him by feeding him lime. So Dr Li himself swallowed barium in front of him.

Likewise, when it was decided to make a cast of his double head for future reference, necessitating the use of a breathing tube while his face was covered with plaster, he refused to cooperate unless Dr Li and a another surgeon also stuck rubber tubes in their nostrils and smeared their faces with Vaseline and then plaster.

On 25 December 1979, as the Western world celebrated Christmas, two teams of surgeons performed an eighthour operation.

“But I could not get the picture of him out of my mind. Not only did I feel tremendously sorry for him as a human being, but the professional in me was fascinated by the rarity of his case and the possible bene ts that trying to deal with it might bring to medical science.

“When an old friend, plastic surgeon Dr Wang Damei, came to Kunming to gather material for a book she was writing, she was very interested when I told her about Two Heads and even more so after seeing the photos we had taken. We agreed to do our best to get him to come into hospital.”

Say 九十九

Eventually, Two Heads’ octogenarian father agreed to discuss the question of hospitalisation. e old man was doubtful at rst. How could they guarantee the success of the operation? And who was going to look after him and his wife while the sole breadwinner was away from home?

Dr Wang assured him that they would not operate unless they were absolutely certain of success, and the medical authorities promised to assist nancially, waiving

“He was very worried, almost paranoid,” said Nurse Yan, who assisted the two doctors. “He used to cover his head with a towel or hide in the administrative o ce to avoid the stares of the other patients. But gradually he came to trust us.” e big question, however, was how closely linked were the two heads? Would the removal of the accessory head a ect the performance of the main brain? After some 30 X-rays, it was concluded that the secondary brain was non-functioning and that no damage would be done by removing it.

A physical examination proved that Two Heads was in perfectly good health, apart from a congenital spinal deformation that gave him a small hump on his back, but did not impede his movements in any way.

So, on the morning of 25 December 1979, as the Western world celebrated Christmas, two teams of surgeons performed an eight-hour operation. It was a resounding success.

When he came round from the anaesthetic, the patient indicated he wanted a mirror. Slowly, a smile spread across his still slightly twisted features. en he held up two ngers – to indicate that he wanted to get married!

I trundled back to Beijing and wrote up the story. To Xinhua’s credit, they allowed this fairly grim picture of life in a remote part of China to go ahead as a result of my convincing them that it would show the world they were no longer in the grip of the Cultural Revolution.

As to what happened to the gentleman at the centre of the story, history – sadly – does not relate, but it’s to be hoped that he (and his wife?) lived happily ever after. n