Mankind's Oldest Surgery
Dating back to the Stone Age, trepanation appears to be mankind’s oldest surgery. Archaeologists have found trepanned skulls dating back to 3000 B.C. , but the earliest found in France is estimated at 7000 years old. Hippocrates in his classic medical text, On Injuries of the Head, provided how-to instructions for the procedure of trepanation.
Can reopening the hole you were born with really restore you “back to the Garden,” and why does evidence of this practice exist in societies all over the world and through millennia?
The trepan tool evolved from a hunk of flint to a hand-cranked auger. Today, a Black and Decker electric drill would suffice. Anyway, in goes the tool and out comes a piece of skull. Under a bandage, the skin heals over the hole.
Babies are born with a soft spot at the top of their heads (the fontanel) that pulses to oxygenate the blood in their brains. As the fontanel seals off in the first year, the brainward oxygen flow diminishes.
When a toddler learns to walk, gravity further impedes this flow. Trepanation fans insists that a “blow-hole” improves concentration, brings about a "permanent high” and banishes the sluggishness and depression associated with maturity. Ergo, a do-it-yourself fontanel seems to be the answer.
In Medieval times and into the Renaissance, this practice was thought to address various maladies. People believed that trepanation could cure migraines, epilepsy, and mental problems (for the demons to make their exit), these little chunks of bone formed talismen worn to keep evil spirits away.
Despite the lack of hygiene, an astounding number of people survived with a curiously low rate of infection.
Trepanation in Modern Times
Bart Huges, sometimes referred to as Dr. Bart Hughes (despite never having attaining a medical degree) explains that trepanation enhances cerebral metabolism and blood flow in a manner similar to some beneficial herbs.
In the early 1970s, Joey Mellen, author of the book Bore Hole, and his partner Amanda Feilding had twice attempted to trepan Mellen using a hand-operated auger. The first attempt failed, and the second attempt landed Mellen in the hospital, but the third attempt turned out to be the charm. Feilding also performed a self-trepanation and produced a short cult art film entitled Heartbeat in the Brain (still unavailable through Netflix)!
Running for British Parliament in the 1979 and 1983 general elections on the platform that trepanation benefits merited scientific investigation, Feilding actually garnered 49 and 139 votes respectively.
Pete Halvorson, a Huges follower and director of the International Trepanation Advocacy Group (ITAG), believes that trepanation accelerates your brain metabolism to create a higher level of consciousness, making you feel good all the time. In his early 20s he experienced a period of deep depression. He tried psychotherapy and various medications to no avail, but after he met Hughes, in 1972 in Amsterdam, he trepanned himself and claims to be in a constant state of bliss—“sort of like an LSD trip—without the hallucinations.”
Halvorson came to suspect an ulterior motive for the psychological community’s repudiation of trepanation. He argues that for psychiatrists or pharmaceutical peddlers, happiness would threaten their livelihood.
Why did ancient civilization, in the absence of head trauma, practice trepanation? Most likely those who practiced it linked the brain with behavior and tried to somehow alter it.
An experimental control group of Parkinson’s patients underwent the hole-drilling to see if had any positive effect on the disease. Reports on the success of the procedure were mixed – with some studies showing actual benefits for Parkinson's suffers, while others dispute the team's findings.
The website of the International Trepanation Advocacy Group includes an online Trepan Mall, where one can order books, T-shirts and the documentary A Hole in the Head.
Jill Arnel - I am a published freelance writer who's written extensively on the subject of dogs, including a book entitled The West Highland White ...
