Edward Mordrake: The Man with an Extra Evil Face
Story of a man with two faces
Edward Mordrake was born in the 19th century. He was an intelligent, young, and good-looking English nobleman.
Also, he was believed to be a “musician of rare ability.”
At a very young age, he had achieved fine attainments and was a scholar. He was a figure of grace and was very handsome.
But with all of these blessings, he was with a curse too. In addition to his good-looking face, he had a terrifying second face on the back of his head.
His second face had a girlish appearance. This second face was said to be as “lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil”.
The strange fact about his faces was whenever Mordrake cried, the second face would sneer and smile. And when he smiled and chuckled, the other face would be upset.
Although the other face on his back was a mere mask. This had occupied only a small amount of the posterior part of the skull. But all the signs of this face were of a malignant sort.
The lips of the other face often appeared to be gibbering something. But no voice was audible to anyone. But this creepy second face kept Mordrake away from his rest at night.
This dramatic tale is even “confirmed” in a famous science textbook ‘Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine’ in 1896.
His devil twin would keep him up by the hateful whispers. Mordrake avers that his other face never sleeps and talks to him about things that only speak of hell.
The young man was eventually driven mad and ended up his life at the age of 23.
He left a note behind ordering that the evil and devil face should be destroyed after his death, “lest it continues its dreadful whispering in my grave”.
No imagination can conceive the dreadful temptations it sets before me. For some unforgiving wickedness of my forefathers, I am knitting to this fiend — for a fiend it surely is. I beg and beseech you to crush it out of human semblance, even if I die for it. — Edward Mordrake
Later this story of a man with two faces spread like fire in America. The medical professionals and public jangled for more details about Mordrake.
In 1896, American doctors George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle added his story in their book. This book was a record of unnatural medical case history. The name of the book is Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine — a collection of peculiar medical cases.
The story of Mordrake is as compelling as it is awful.
Animals who are born with an extra face, rarely live long. In medical terms it is a result of “craniofacial duplication”, and sometimes it is a form of a conjoined twin.
There was even another man, Chang Tzu Ping, who lived at least to adulthood with an extra mouth and other facial features.
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References-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mordake
