A boy with two heads, with one completely upside down on the head attached to his body, was launched into a fire at birth but miraculously survived.

When the boy was born he horrified the midwife assisting the birth so much that she threw him into a fire. Somehow he only suffered minor injuries.

Both of his heads were fully functioning and operated independently of each other, each with its own brain. One is said to have slept while the other way awake, and cry while the other smiled.

And, although they experienced the same pain, their responses to stimulants – with one head being very light-sensitive with poor vision.

The boy, who was thought by most as an oddity, was born in 1783 in Mundal Guat, Bengal, India. His parents, seeing a chance to make a quick buck, took him to Calcutta where people paid to see his unique condition.

To stop crowds from taking a look at the boy dubbed the ‘Two-headed Boy of Bengal’ without paying, his parents would keep him hidden under a sheet sometimes for hours, reported Amusing Planet.

As time went on and his fame began to spread across the country, the oddity was invited into the homes of nobleman, civil servants and city officials for private exhibitions. This would have been at a premium price.

And, while one would think the boy died from complications of his bizarre deformity, he actually succumbed to a cobra bite aged four when his mother had gone to get water.

The boy’s condition is known as craniopagus parasiticus, which only affects around two in every five million children, with the skull now displayed at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

Surgery to rectify these incredibly rare medical conditions is very risky. In 2004, a girl born with the same condition in the Dominican Republic underwent surgery at eight weeks old but died from blood loss.

According to SUN, in 2005, another affected baby underwent a successful 13-hour procedure in Egypt but died a few weeks later because of infections.

And, more recently in 2021, a baby with two heads was born in Romania but died a few hours later.