A Birmingham man born with three penises has become only the second person ever proven to have the strange deformity, doctors claim.
Only one of the three was functional, according to doctors who published the extremely rare case of a condition known as triphallia in a medical journal.
The other two were stuck in the skin of the scrotal sac, where the testicles are located.
The 78-year-old’s condition was only discovered after he donated his body to science after his death.
It is believed that the man was unaware of his ‘remarkable anatomical variation’ all his life.
A Birmingham man born with three penises has become only the second person ever proven to have the strange deformity, doctors claim
Doctors from the University of Birmingham’s medical school said one in five to six million boys are born with more than one penis, with just over 100 cases of diphallia – two penises – recorded worldwide.
Doctors from the University of Birmingham’s medical school said one in five to six million boys are born with more than one penis, with just over 100 cases of diphallia – two penises – recorded worldwide.
But the man is only the second to have triphallia.
One case in India went viral in 2015, but experts were unable to verify the story because it was never reported in a medical journal.
The first case was confirmed in a 2020 report, when the unknown boy from Duhok, Iraq was just three months old.
Urologists discovered that none of the extra penises had a urethra, the tube through which urine passes, and decided that surgery was the best option.
Students in Birmingham made the new discovery while dissecting the body of the man, who was about 6 feet tall and “of medium to large build.”
But they also found that the third penis had different anatomical features than the first ‘functional’ penis and the second, located in the skin of the scrotal sac.
The extra penis had no corpus spongiosum, a mass of spongy tissue, or a urethra.
Writing in the Journal of Medical Case ReportsAccording to doctors, this may have caused the man to live with ‘functional deficits’.
This could have been part of it urinary tract infections, erectile dysfunction or fertility problems.
Dyspareunia – persistent or recurring genital pain that occurs just before, during or after sex – may also have been a problem.the potential erection of the secondary and tertiary penises,” they added.
Scientists are still baffled about the cause of supernumerary penises – the technical name for the extra members – with the first case reported in the 17th century.
There is no known risk factor, but it is believed that this happens by chance when genitalia develop in the womb.
In almost all reported cases of excess penises, surgeons have surgically removed the extra penis.