The case of Liu Ch'ing

Factual Questions
1

I’ve read that there was a chinese man by the name of Liu Ch’ing that was born with two pupils in each eye! This double deal of nature didn’t stop him from entering Public Service and in A.D. 955, he became governor of Shansi Province.

I don’t know whether to believe this or not, but since I’ve been checking out the Straight Dope website, I’ve discovered loads of things that I never thought existed before. Therefore, can the case of Liu Ch’ing real?? Is there a medical condition for this? What is it called? How would he see?? Would the pupils work independent of each other? Are there other known cases?

2

Browsing around under “fetal pupil abnormalities”, on websites like this one, I don’t see anything like duplicate pupils.

http://www.emedicine.com/oph/topic141.htm

So I’m guessing that it’s just a legend.

3

I saw his waxwork statue in the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum in Niagara Falls. Complete with double pupils.

David Bowie, eat your heart out. :wink:

4

Robert Ripley collected all sorts of interesting stories, but he didn’t research them–and quite possibly made a lot of them up.

Thus, the tag line “Believe it–or not!”

5

I wonder if this thread was somehow inspired (directly or indirectly) by this recent Taiwanese horror movie

6

Some famous personalities in Chinese history were said to have two pupils in each of their eyes eg the legendary emperor Shun and the warlord Xiang Yu (2nd century BC).

Just a hijack.

7

No this was not inspired by any horror movie. I saw it in a book that my little cousin was reading . It’s called the Giant Book of Fantastic Facts.