Neolithic Trepanation

I was just doing a bit of research earlier, as I was curious about some of the first medical practices known to man. I was going to write a more elaborate post about the history of medicine and when certain major advances occurred along our timeline, but decided to do a quick post about this, instead. Trepanation, which involves drilling holes in the skull (yikes!), was used a very long time ago. Yeah, way back during the Neolithic period, if that tells ya anything.  Some people also call this medical procedure Trepanning, trephining, trephination or, as I read on another website, "making a burr hole." Can you imagine hearing that back then? Just try to visualize some ancient experimental doctor with the intelligence of a chimpanzee that looks over to his patient and says, "well, it looks like we are going to be making a burr hole today." Ha-ha! 

At any failed medical rate, Neolithic Trepanation was extremely primitive, to say the least. I've read before that it was going on at least as far back as 5000 B.C., but I seen today where they now say it has been dated all the way back to 6500 B.C. Yeah, that should definitely be considered an outdated & obsolete practice, for sure!

This was possibly the oldest surgical procedure to have ever existed, but we can only guess by way of archaeological evidence. Ancient cave paintings have also illustrated this particular medical practice, and it is believed that they performed these procedures for the humanoids that had mental problems, migraines, and other brain-related problems or whatever. Good grief, can you imagine somebody that is about 3 hairs away from being a monkey, jabbing holes into your head while telling you that you're going to be okay??? Wow! Anyway, I thought I'd share these tidbits with the community today; cheers!

If for some reason you are interested in reading more about this crazy subject, go here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanation

Image Credit: It is in the Public Domain because its copyright has expired.

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