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posted by mrpg on Sunday June 10 2018, @08:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the trepanation++ dept.

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


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by HiThere on Monday June 11 2018, @12:01AM (2 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 11 2018, @12:01AM (#691221) Journal

    This is usually determined in archaeological finds by whether the bones started to heal. I haven't read this particular article, but I'd assume that was the practice in this study.

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  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday June 11 2018, @12:42AM

    by Gaaark (41) on Monday June 11 2018, @12:42AM (#691232) Journal

    Ay, makes sense. Thanks!

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  • (Score: 2) by qzm on Monday June 11 2018, @05:53AM

    by qzm (3260) on Monday June 11 2018, @05:53AM (#691294)

    Perhaps you can also comment on why the study is comparing what are almost certainly severe trauma patients (civil war cases) with that are most likely religious/psychological patients (peru) who were most likely in otherwise good health?

    My assumption is that they wanted to push some preconception about 'wow look at those amazing ancients!'