Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 36. (Budapest, 1965)

N. P. Makletsova, V. V. Guinzburg, D. G. Rokhlin (Leningrád): Trepanation in Fossil Skulls found in the USSR Territory

existence of such a custom belong to Prunières, de Baye, Guiard, Nefedov and others. Some skulls, in which trepanation had been made during the lifetime of their owners, were found to possess additional holes evidently cut out already after death, possibly in order to obtain amulets. Broca accounted for it by supposing that persons who had survived the operation were thought to be holy. Superstitious people believed that such an amulet protected its owner from illness and evil spell. It is most probable that a T-shaped osseous cicatrix served to cure illnesses, or else was a symbolic sign of the individual being consecrated to some rank, or else certified that the bearer of it was a member of a certain community. There is a possibility than that sort of cicatrix was thought to be an ornament (Lushan, Manouvrier). As to the technique of the operation, it was usually performed by scrubbing the bone off, layer after layer. On the territory of France, posthumous trepanation was achieved by sawing or, more accurately, cutting out a hole by means of a sharp flint. D. N. Anuchin was the first to describe a fossil skull trepanated by applying a gouge. In Transilvania there was found a Celtic surgical instrument dated to the second half of the Iron Age, that had been used for performing trepanation. Berberians of Oresa district in Algeria used a drill for that kind of surgery since the III century B. C. and up to the present century: they joined several drilled holes by breaking bone partitions remaining between them. A neolithic skull from Nogent-les-Vierges is worthy of note. It has been examined by Guiard and Pales both anatomically and radiologically. A large defect extended over the main part of the lateral surface of the parietal bone, as well as the adjacent temporoparietal region. Trepanation had been a success with no traces of infection. In some ancient Peruvian skulls there is evidence of successful trepanations performed even two or three times consequently (MacCurdy, Grimm). In the territory of the present Rumania there have been found one skull belonging to the later neolithic epoch and four skulls of the aeneolithic period, all bearing evidence of trepanation with no