Billed as a two-headed man, Pasqual Pinon was a popular sideshow attraction in the early twentieth century. He had what appeared to be a second head sprouting from his forehead. It had facial features, a mop of hair, and a matching beard. It was about half the size of Pinon’s main head.
At age 65, the Mexican-born star of the Sells-Floto Circus was touring through Gardner, Massachusetts, in June 1919 when he suffered a headache so debilitating he had to be hospitalized. “The doctors found that this extra head, which was on top of his natural head, was a tumorous growth and in order to save the man’s life it was necessary to operate and remove it,” a newspaper stated. He had nothing more than Novocain to suppress the pain.
Sideshow promoters had discovered his when he was working as a railroad laborer and saw potential in his oddly shaped head. They dressed his massive tumor as a second noggin and, as the newspaper noted, the gaff earned him enough money during his travels to support a wife and six children.
After its amputation, doctors discovered that only a thin membrane protected his brain. Fortunately, he survived the ordeal, though his career did not. Without a second head, he returned to his home in Mexico to retire.
Read more about sideshow performers in American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of History’s Most Wondrous and Curiously Strange Performers
