In an astonishing medical discovery, a British man living in Birmingham, United Kindom, was found to have three penises, a condition known as triphallia. This extraordinarily rare case, detailed in the Journal of Medical Case Reports, marks only the second confirmed instance of triphallia ever recorded in medical literature.
The 78-year-old man’s condition was uncovered after he donated his body to science. Doctors at the University of Birmingham’s medical school were stunned to find the anatomical anomaly during dissection. While one of the penises was functional, the other two were located within the skin of the scrotal sac and lacked typical anatomical features.
Diphallia, the condition of having two penises, is already exceptionally rare, affecting an estimated one in every five to six million boys. Triphallia is even rarer, with only one previous case confirmed in a 2020 report involving a three-month-old boy from Iraq.
“This is a remarkable anatomical variation,” the doctors noted in their report, adding that the man may have lived his entire life unaware of his condition. However, they also suggested that the anatomical differences in the additional penises could have led to “functional deficits” such as urinary tract infections, erectile dysfunction, or fertility issues.
The cause of supernumerary penises, the technical term for having extra penises, remains a mystery to scientists. It is thought to occur by chance during genital development in the womb, with no single known risk factor.
In almost all reported cases, surgical removal of the extra penises is the standard treatment. However, in this particular case, the man’s triphallia was only discovered posthumously, offering a unique opportunity for researchers to study this rare phenomenon.
This extraordinary case highlights the complexities of human development and underscores the importance of continued research into rare medical conditions
