Do It your selfers.......
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abcnews.go.com
By Willow Lawson
Sept. 27 — Advocates of a crude form of surgery
called trepanation, which involves drilling holes into
the skull, want to bring the practice back — from
prehistoric times.
The art of cranial surgery was practiced up to 5,000
years ago in Europe, and until a few centuries ago on many
other continents, according to archaeologists who have
found skulls with carefully carved, man-made holes in them.
Evidence of healing and bony scar tissue around the holes
shows that many of these people lived long lives after going
under the knife.
“If you cut a hole in someone’s head, as it heals, the
edges smooth out,” says John Verano, an archaeologist at
Tulane University who is writing a book on the surgery. “A
spongy kind of bone will grow between the gaps.”
From Ancient to Modern Surgery
Trepanation still exists today, but in a different form. In the
past few decades there have been a handful of notable
cases of people trying the surgery.
The most famous, perhaps, is Amanda Feilding, a British
woman who drilled a hole in the top of her head believing
that it would bring about a higher state of consciousness —
which it has, she says.
Feilding believes something is lost when the skull bones
that encase the brain fuse completely together as people
grow older.
“When you’re a child, the arteries in the brain can pulsate
more fully,” Feilding says. “The membrane around the brain
can expand and the little arteries in the head can expand.
The point of trepanation is to give the brain back that
pulsation.”
While modern-day trepanation enthusiasts hope to free
their minds, so to speak, by drilling holes in their heads,
archaeologists are still trying to learn what motivated our
ancient ancestors to practice the surgery. One explanation is
it may have been an early attempt at brain surgery.
Sling Stones, Not Arrows
In fact, archaeologists think most of these ancient operations
were performed to treat individuals who had suffered
massive head trauma, most likely in combat. Early surgeons
probably performed trepanation to remove splinters of skull
bone and relieve pressure from blood clots that formed
when blood vessels were broken.
The procedure probably evolved through a bit of trial and
error, says Verano. After it worked on one individual,
scientists think the early surgeons probably tried it again,
learning not to puncture the membrane that surrounds the
brain.
Verano says weapons like sling stones and clubs were
widely used in prehistoric South America, where the largest
group of trepanned skulls — about 1,000 in private and
public collections — exists in the nations of Peru and Bolivia.
The majority of the skulls date from 500 B.C. until the 16th
century A.D., according to Verano.
He thinks the use of heavy, blunt weaponry contributed to
the medical need for trepanation. Unlike warriors with
spears and arrows who would normally aim for the chest,
wielders of dull weapons would most likely strike their
victims in the head. Early doctors were probably operating
on people who had suffered life-threatening injuries.
The techniques used for early cranial surgery varied
through time in South America, says Verano. Ancient
Peruvians performed the surgery with obsidian — volcanic
glass — in the early days but eventually switched over to
bronze and other metal tools when technology provided
them.
Many Ways to Cut Bone
To cut the skull bone, scientists believe the ancient surgeons
used a variety of techniques. The earliest included scraping
at the skull, gently removing layers of bone until breaking
through to the brain. This method was used most often in
ancient England, according to Charlotte Roberts, a
paleopathologist at the University of Durham in Britain, who
has studied the phenomenon of skull surgery there. The
modified skulls that she has studied — about 50 crania from
3,000 B.C. to the 16th century A.D. — had holes ranging
from about half an inch to 6 inches.
“That one didn’t live,” she says of the person with the
6-inch hole.
Other ancient surgeons cut straight incisions in the skull
and joined them at an angle to create wedge-shaped holes
in the head. Another method was to carve circular grooves in
the skulls, cutting discs of skull bone out of the crania. The
least successful method, and one that was most likely very
traumatic for patients, says Roberts, was the boring of a
series of holes into the head and breaking the bone that
joined them.
When Feilding decided to put a hole in her head in 1970,
she used a much more modern tool: an electric
foot-operated dentist’s drill. Feilding, then 27 years old,
applied a local anesthetic to her scalp and taped glasses to
her face to prevent blood from dripping into her eyes. Then,
using a mirror for guidance, she bored a hole about a
half-inch wide in the top of her head just above the hairline
while a friend filmed the procedure. She says she
immediately felt better.
“I found it gave me more energy, lifted me up, made me
more buoyant,” she says.
Over time the feeling that she had after the operation
faded, says Feilding. So in February of this year, Feilding had
a doctor in Mexico City drill another, larger hole on the right
side of her head. To ensure that it wouldn’t grow over, she
had a piece of wax inserted in the wound to inhibit the
growth of bone. Her husband, a former Oxford University
professor (who, incidentally, once instructed now-President
Bill Clinton), also had a hole made in his skull.
Feilding says the results were similar in the second
surgery as in the first.
Feilding says she gets hundreds of requests a year
through her Web site from people who ask her how to get
trepanned by a licensed physician. Most of them won’t be
able to, as Feilding found, because few doctors will agree to
perform the procedure. Feilding has taken up the cause in
local politics, running for local office twice (she lost both
times). And she is constantly lobbying the British government
to pay for trepanation and research into the effects of the
operation.
Interpreting the Evidence
Feilding asserts she isn’t the first to believe in the theraputic
effects of trepanation.
“In the past, trepanation was done for skull trauma —
from battleaxes and such,” she says. “But I think there is
evidence that was used to get rid of headaches, or to ‘let
spirits out,’ which we call schizophrenia now, or even to ‘let
the light in’ for the priest caste. I think there is a wider
variety of uses than archaeologists give ancient man credit
for.”
Indeed, there are a few skulls in the archaeological
record that can’t be explained as head trauma victims,
according to Verano. These skulls have an astounding four to
seven holes in them. Vernano suspects these were probably
patients who had problems that would not go away.
“We have those people today in our society, too,” he
says. “These were probably the equivalent to modern-day
hypochondriacs.” Verano says he would strongly dissuade
anyone today from seeking the operation for its purported
psychological benefits — even if it is a practice that’s been
around for millenia. “I doubt there’s anything to it. I tell them
I think they’re on the wrong path.” |
