A deceased man’s genitals have turned out to be a medical wonder. In a recent case report, doctors in the UK describe discovering that the man had three penises—an incredibly rare condition. Amazingly, the man may have never known about his unique anatomy, as the discovery was only made after his body was donated to science, and his external genitalia appeared perfectly normal.
The condition is known as triphallia. It was only just documented by doctors for the first time in a human four years ago, in a three-month-old boy from Iraq. This newest report, published earlier this month in the Journal of Medical Case Reports, is the second ever recorded case of triphallia and the first found in an adult man.
According to the report, the man was white, about six feet tall, medium to large-sized, and 78-years-old at the time of his death. At first glance, the man’s junk looked completely ordinary. But once the researchers dissected his cadaver, they found that he had two other distinct penises internally. Further exploration revealed that his urethra ran through both his primary and secondary penis. His second penis, though smaller in size than the first, also still contained the three main tissues of a penis: the corpus cavernosum, the corpus spongiosum, and the glans (the head). The man’s third penis, located just behind the second one, lacked a connection to the urethra along with any corpus spongiosum.
Just in case you’re wondering—and who wouldn’t be—the man’s primary penis measured around 3 inches long, though that’s obviously without the typical boost of being alive and having an erection. Both his secondary and tertiary penis were around 1.5 inches long.
“This case report, based on an extensive literature review, describes the serendipitous discovery during cadaveric dissection of the second reported human case of triphallia, distinctly morphologically different from the previous case,” the researchers wrote.
A person surviving with extra organs in general isn’t unheard of, though most cases involve just a duplicate. Multiple penises are thought to be typically caused by genetic mutations that affect the expression of androgen receptors early on in development. Since the penis develops from tissue known as the genital tubercle, the man’s mutations may have caused a triplication of his genital tubercle, the researchers say. Based on their analysis, his urethra actually first developed from the secondary penis, but when it failed to fully develop, the urethra changed course and developed through his primary penis instead.
Because of local cadaver donation laws, the researchers weren’t told the man’s identity or his medical history, so there’s only so much they can know about how his condition may have affected him in life.
Because of the lack of any external oddity, it’s certainly possible that the man and his romantic partners lived without ever suspecting anything was amiss. But it’s known that multiple penises can often cause problems like urinary obstruction or erectile dysfunction. The researchers found that the man had undergone a groin hernia repair at some point, a procedure that commonly involves the use of a catheter. And given the man’s twisty urethra, it’s likely that any such attempt to pass a catheter through it would be difficult, which may have then led to the discovery of his condition. It’s also possible that his extra penises could have caused pain during sex if they were capable of becoming erect.
Still, the researchers do also speculate that if his “defect had been noticed during his life, it may have simply been left untouched due to the apparent lack of symptoms and its benign nature.” So personally, I choose to believe that happier version of events.
