
James Clinton Bicknell is famous for being the husband of Myrtle Corbin, the woman with four legs and two private parts. James got married to Myrtle when she was just 19 years old. The couple had 4 children.
James Clinton Bicknell: Bio summary
Full name | James Clinton Bicknell |
Date of Birth | 23 December 1868 |
Place of Birth | Blount Alabama United States of America |
Date Of Death | 14 February 1946 |
Place of Death | Fort Worth, Tarrant, Texas, United States, |
Age at Time of Death | 77 years old |
Parents | father – Micajah Alexander Bicknell Mother -Frances E. Graves |
Wife | Josephine Myrtle Corbin |
Nationality | American |
James Clinton: Life and Background
James Clinton Bicknell was born on 23 December 1868, in Blount, Alabama, United States. He was born to his father, Micajah Alexander Bicknell, who was 45 at the time of his birth, and his mother, Frances E. Graves, who was also 39 years old before giving birth to him. Growing up James had 12 siblings.
James married Josephine Myrtle Corbin, the woman with four legs and two on 12 June 1886, in Blount, Alabama, United States. James’s marriage to myrtle who was very popular during her time was what brought James too into the spotlight. James got married to his wife when she was just 19 years of age and the two lived happily together till the wife passed away. Dr. James Senior brother also got married to Myrtle’s younger sister, which was before James proposed to young Myrtle.
It’s clear that James Bicknell who was a doctor married Myrtle for love, and not for money, for upon their marriage he insisted she leave show business and start a farm.
The two had at least 4 children, 1 boy, and 3 girls. There were Nancy Estelle, Francis Clinton, Ruby, and Lillian J.
In the early 1890’s James & Myrtle moved their family from Blount County, AL to Johnson County, TX, settling near and finally moving to Cleburne City. The farming couple lived happily.
James Clinton Bicknell died on 14 February 1946, in Fort Worth, Tarrant, Texas, United States, at the age of 77, and was buried in Cleburne Memorial Park, Cleburne, Johnson, Texas, United States.
Interesting things about James Clinton Bicknell’s wife, Myrtle Corbin
1. James’s wife was of sound health from Birth: She was seen as natural beauty even though she was born with four legs and two private parts. The doctors that carried out a test on her after she was born confirmed that she was healthy and robust and could operate like every other normal human being.
2. James Clinton Bicknell’s wife, Myrtle Corbin was a Sideshow performer: At the earlier age of 13, she was very famous for her act in Sideshows. Her different looks gave her father the idea that he could charge curious residents a token to look at his four-legged Josephine. So the girl began to travel to different towns for sideshow performances and she earned a lot of money, she was earning as much as 450 dollars a week at that time.
3. James Clinton Bicknell married her and they had Children: While some people could have wondered why would anyone marry a girl like Josephine with 4 legs, interestingly, when she was nineteen, she got married to Clinton Bicknell. James and Josephine were in love with each other.
Not only did he marry her, but they also had five children in the process (a boy and four girls). They originally were supposed to have 8 but only 4 survived.
4. James’s wife preferred having sexual intercourse on her right side: It was like a surprise to her when she had her first pregnancy. When the news was shared with her, Corbin was quoted to have responded in disbelief that, “If it had been in my right side I would come nearer believing you are correct.” Based on what she said, it became glaring to everyone that the four-legged woman enjoyed having intercourse on her right side compared to her left side.
James Clinton Bicknell proved to be a very good husband to Myrtle even though she had some deformities. The two love birds lived happily together until his wife developed a skin disease and pass away 6 days after it was diagnosed.
James Clinton Bicknell’s Wife’s Presence In Medical Journals
Teratologists in medical journals and encyclopedias in the nineteenth century classified Corbin’s anomaly using several different, yet equally complex, terms, according to conventions of the time.
Some referred to her as a “dipygus dibrachius tetrapus”, others named her condition “‘posterior dichotomy,’ subvariety schizorachis”. One doctor, Brooks H. Wells, described her as “female, belonging to the monocephalic, ileadelphic class of monsters by fusion.”“She is about five feet high, has fair skin, blue eyes, and curly hair, and is very intelligent.
A stranger, to see her in a company, would only think her unusually broad across her hips, and with the carriage usual to one with a clubbed foot. I have known Mrs. B. since she was a tiny child, as the ‘four-legged girl,’ but never realized the perfect dual development of both external and internal genital organs until she became my patient in case of pregnancy” — Lewis Whaley, quoted about James Clinton Bicknell’s wife Myrtle in the British Medical Journal, 1889
In the spring of 1887, approximately a year after marrying Bicknell, Corbin became pregnant for the first time: her condition was discovered by Dr. Lewis Whaley, of Blountsville, Alabama, who was sent for after Corbin had experienced pain in her left side, fever, headache, and a decreased appetite.
In addition, the physician noted that “vomiting and amenorrhoea had persisted for two months”. Whaley went on to write up the case for the Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal, which led to a resurgence of interest in Myrtle throughout the late 1880s, now known in medical journals as ‘Mrs. B.’
Whaley observed that the visible doubling of Corbin’s sexual organs was paralleled by an inside duplication when he examined her. Mrs. B. was found to be pregnant in her left uterus, according to him.
When Whaley was told she was pregnant, she expressed her disbelief by saying, “If it had been in my right side, I would have come closer believing you are correct.” From this comment, physicians determined that James Clinton Bicknell’s wife preferred intercourse on the right side, and this fact was commented upon in several subsequent reports.
Read more about Myrtle Corbin and her condition from here
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