Medicine: Death of a Twin

For 34 days it was touch & go for Roger Brodie, the bigger but weaker of the skull-joined Siamese twins, separated in an operation that made medical history (TIME, Dec. 29). Roger continued to exist in a deep coma, but that was all. Late one night last week he died. At the University of Illinois' Neuropsychiatric Institute in Chicago, doctors listed pressure on the vital centers at the base of the brain as one cause of death. Actually, the wonder was not what killed 16-month-old Roger but how he had stayed alive so long.

Twin Rodney was still listed as in "critical" condition, and would remain so until his brain could be entirely covered with skin flaps to guard against infection. Doctors had pumped half a dozen antibiotics into Rodney, using different combinations to prevent the growth of a resistant strain of germs. They were relieved last week when he got over a mouth infection. But they would not relax until Rodney had another operation to cover his brain.