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History and Purpose of Trephination

Trephination is a surgical procedure where a hole is drilled or scraped into the skull, exposing the dura mater without damaging blood vessels or brain tissue. It has been used to treat intracranial diseases, seizures, migraines, and mental disorders by relieving pressure on the brain. Evidence also indicates it was used as emergency surgery to remove bone fragments from fractured skulls and drain blood from under the skull. Archaeological evidence from Neolithic sites shows trephination was one of the oldest surgical procedures, with some sites in France from 6500 BCE containing skulls where over a third showed signs of trephination. Many trephined skulls show healing, suggesting the surgery often had a high survival rate, with some

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Teggy Gatia
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56 views1 page

History and Purpose of Trephination

Trephination is a surgical procedure where a hole is drilled or scraped into the skull, exposing the dura mater without damaging blood vessels or brain tissue. It has been used to treat intracranial diseases, seizures, migraines, and mental disorders by relieving pressure on the brain. Evidence also indicates it was used as emergency surgery to remove bone fragments from fractured skulls and drain blood from under the skull. Archaeological evidence from Neolithic sites shows trephination was one of the oldest surgical procedures, with some sites in France from 6500 BCE containing skulls where over a third showed signs of trephination. Many trephined skulls show healing, suggesting the surgery often had a high survival rate, with some

Uploaded by

Teggy Gatia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Trephination (also known as trepanning or burr holing) is a surgical intervention

where a hole is drilled, incised or scraped into the skull using simple surgical tools.
In drilling into the skull and removing a piece of the bone, the dura mater is
exposed without damage to the underlying blood-vessels, meninges and brain.
Trephination has been used to treat health problems associated with intracranial
diseases, epileptic seizures, migraines and mental disorders by relieving pressure.
There is also evidence it was used as a primitive form of emergency surgery to
remove shattered pieces of bone from fractured skulls after receiving a head
wound, and cleaning out the pools of blood that would form underneath the skull.

FIRST CASES OF TREPHINATION


Evidence for trephination occurs from prehistoric times from the Neolithic
periodonwards. The main pieces of archaeological evidence are in the forms of
cave paintings and human remains; the skulls themselves from prehistoric times. It
is the oldest surgical procedure for which we actually have archaeological
evidence. At one site in France, burials included forty instances of trephination
from around 6500 BCE; one third of the skulls found at the site. The percentage of
occurrences there though is fairly high and percentages largely differ between sites
and continents. It is from the human remains found at such sites that we know that
the surgery had a fair survival rate. Many skulls show signs of healing and indicate
that the patient lived for years after the event, even sometimes having trephination
performed again later in life and again surviving the experience.

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