What was unusual about circus performer Myrtle Corbin?

Josephine Myrtle Corbin (May 12, 1868 – May 6, 1928) was an American sideshow performer born as a dipygus. This refers to the fact that she had two separate pelvises side by side from the waist down, due to a severe congenital deformity. Each of her smaller inner legs was paired with one of her outer legs. She was said to be able to move her inner legs, but not walk on them.

Corbin was born in Tennessee and soon showed herself to be a strong child, weighing 10 lb (4.5 kg) three weeks after the birth.

Corbin entered the circus sideshow circuit with the moniker "Four-Legged Girl from Texas" when she was 13 years old; one of her first promotional pamphlets described her as being as "gentle of disposition as the summer sunshine and as happy as the day is long."

At age 19, she married James Clinton Bicknell, with whom she had four daughters and a son.

When Corbin became pregnant for the first time her physician, Dr. Lewis Whaley, discovered that the duplication of her external sexual organs was mirrored by a similar duplication internally. He determined that it was in her left uterus that she was pregnant. Corbin became gravely ill, and after consulting with colleagues, Whaley decided to perform an abortion. She made a full recovery, and successfully carried five subsequent pregnancies to term.

When she died her casket was covered in concrete to prevent grave robbers from stealing her corpse.