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<\/a><\/p>\nMaximo and Bartola were twins born in the San Salvadorean village of Decora. Diminutive and idiotic from birth, they were sold by their mother Espina (the spine) to a Spanish trader who in turn peddled them to the American who introduced them to England. Microcephalics have small heads because their brains are small, rather than vice versa. Their foreheads recede because their forebrains are even disproportionately smaller. The causes of microcephaly vary. In the case of Maximo and Bartola, a recessive mutant gene, foetal malnutrition or maternal disease were the most likely sources. Most microcephalics are mentally retarded.<\/p>\n
Although we would now view them simply as victims of genetic disease or under-nourishment, the context in which they were viewed by their contemporaries was quite different. The books of the American traveler John Lloyd Stephens,\u00a0Incidents of Travel in Central America<\/em>,\u00a0Chiapas and Yucatan<\/em>\u00a0(1841) and\u00a0Incidents of Travel in Yucatan<\/em>\u00a0(1843), had kindled a romantic interest in the pre-Columbian cultures of Central America. Mayan sculpture revealed that forehead deformation had been common practice. It artificially produced a receding brow in a skull of normal size, and Maximo and Bartola bore some resemblance to the Mayans. In addition there was a general tendency to view microcephalics as evolutionary throwbacks to the childhood of the human race. In time, a moral component was added by the well-publicized theories of the Italian professor of criminology, Cesare Lombroso. In 1876 he published a pamphlet linking criminal behavior with certain degenerate, physical types. Criminality was inborn; the atavistic or born criminal could be recognized by the shape of his head. Lombroso’s typology singled out the individual with a receding forehead and protuberant ears as a classic criminal type. That Maximo and Bartola conformed perfectly only enhanced their interest to the public.<\/p>\n While touring England in 1867 the twins added a further wrinkle to their appeal. They married each other. The union, however, offered no threat to the gene pool, for Maximo remained too sexually immature to consummate it. The couple continued to tour until 1901.<\/p>\n Culled from:\u00a0Monsters: Human Freaks in America’s Gilded Age<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nMystifying Murder Du Jour!<\/h3>\n