A Brief History of Trepanation
Posted by John Brownlee
I have always understood the passion that drives the earnest trepanation enthusiast. Ensconced in the pickling sarcophagus of my skull, my brain meats are trapped, thirsty for the sweet taste of fresh air. It’s maddening: my brain picks up an electric drill and knows it’s a trigger-pull away from the cranial equivalent of a Sunday constitutional, but it doesn’t quite dare, knowing full well that if the parietal lobe gets a breath of fresh air, the cerebellum’s going to start complaining next.
So I refrain. But over at Retrospectable, my hot imaginary neuroscientist girlfriend Shelley Batts has stripped down to her bikini and written a post pointing out this excellent history of trepanation by the Neurophilosophy guys. Heady reading. Why did cavemen trepan? To treat migraines, apparently.
An Illustrated History of Trepanation [Neurophilosophy]
Categories: Surgery, Neuroscience, Trepanation, Medical
Posted at 11:42 am on January 7, 2008
5 Comments -
That’s “the Neurophilosophy GUY” actually.
Comment by Mo — January 7, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
Hey John, I thought you’d forgotten about me. Jeez, you send a guy a couple dozen paternity tests and you neve hear back from them….
Comment by Shelley Batts — January 7, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
John - I should have mentioned that my trepanation post is about to be published in Open Lab 2007.
And BTW, Shelley doesn’t link to the post. Although you did, back in June, when you were still blogging at Table of Malcontents.
Comment by Mo — January 7, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
Mo, yes I did, but its in this post: http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2008/01/howto_video_for_trepanation.php
Comment by Shelley Batts — January 7, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
lies! and poppycock!
oh, how the uninformed like to revel in their “knowledge” of practices they cannot understand.
here, i have written a definitive history on Head-Holing:
http://www.infernoland.com/trepannery.html
please enjoy, and be edified
~H.
Comment by Haux — January 7, 2008 @ 9:05 pm