Submitted via IRC for Fnord666
[...] After all, who needs a hole in the head? Yet for thousands of years, trepanation -- the act of scraping, cutting, or drilling an opening into the cranium -- was practiced around the world, primarily to treat head trauma, but possibly to quell headaches, seizures and mental illnesses, or even to expel perceived demons.
[...] "In Incan times, the mortality rate was between 17 and 25 percent, and during the Civil War, it was between 46 and 56 percent. That's a big difference. The question is how did the ancient Peruvian surgeons have outcomes that far surpassed those of surgeons during the American Civil War?"
[...] Whatever their methods, ancient Peruvians had plenty of practice. More than 800 prehistoric skulls with evidence of trepanation -- at least one but as many as seven telltale holes -- have been found in the coastal regions and the Andean highlands of Peru, the earliest dating back to about 400 B.C. That's more than the combined total number of prehistoric trepanned skulls found in the rest of the world.
Source: Remarkable skill of ancient Peru's cranial surgeons
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday June 10 2018, @11:55PM (2 children)
I suspect that the main difference was the theory of "laudable pus". Surgeons used to be proud of not washing their hands between patients. Probably that exact preference wasn't followed on a battlefield, but it inspired a lot of associated customs.
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(Score: 2) by dry on Monday June 11 2018, @12:47AM (1 child)
Even worse, not washing their hands after performing an autopsy.
It's also interesting the resistance those surgeons showed against the germ theory of disease.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @02:00AM
There are still physicians (and even surgeons) who are resistant to hand washing guidelines. The surgeons are in a minority, but in clinical practice it's reversed. Every single credible study ever published finds positive results for caregivers washing their hands between patients, but when you're in a busy practice, that's a lot of handwashing, and it can be rough on your skin if you do it to the guidelines.
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