Medicine: Spinal Joint

When Mrs. Floyd Hutchens, 33, of El Cajon, bore twin sons in San Diego's Grossmont Hospital July 2, they were joined for 1½ inches at the base of their spines. This is the commonest form of joining in "Siamese" twins, but there was only one case in U.S. medical annals where both twins so joined had survived an operation to separate them.

Last week, aged 17 days, Gary Neil and Larry Dale Hutchens went under the knife. In mid-operation the surgeons found, as they had feared, that the tissues tying the twins together included part of their spinal canals and two sensory nerves. They made the separation anyway, confident that the severed nerves were minor ones and gratified that little blood or spinal fluid was lost in the operation. At week's end Gary and Larry were doing fine in separate cribs and the doctors gave them a good chance to live normal lives.