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Medical (Madness)—Mistakes Throughout History
Published in Miner Gary, Miner Linda, Dean Darrell, Healthcare’s Out Sick – Predicting A Cure – Solutions That Work !!!!, 2019
Miner Gary, Miner Linda, Dean Darrell
Trepanning, or the boring of a hole in the head, was used even in the cave era. Cave paintings show such practices. The theory was that the hole would let out the evil spirits that brought headaches and other maladies (https://www.topmastersinhealthcare.com/10-most-barbaric-treatments-in-modern-healthcare/).
Seventeenth-century English surgery: the casebook of Joseph Binns
Published in Christopher Lawrence, Medical Theory, Surgical Practice, 2018
Head wounds – particularly those involving fractures – were among the most serious disorders Binns treated. Of the thirteen cases for which we have some details, four patients died, five got well and four case-notes were incomplete, so the outcome is unknown. The four patients who died experienced a similar pattern of symptoms. Each seemed reasonably well after the initial dressing of the wound and remained so for at least a week. After between nine and fourteen days each patient developed symptoms – vomiting, fever, or paralysis – which became increasingly severe until the patient’s death between thirteen and twenty-five days after injury.51 In three cases, Binns and the other surgeons consulted followed standard procedure by laying the cranium bare in order to determine whether the skull had been fractured. In two cases the trepan was applied.52 In Binns’s practice this operation was obviously reserved for the most desperate cases, when the patient was expected to die in any event. Both of Binns’s patients who underwent trepanning died within 24 hours after the operation.
History: treatment of mental illness
Published in Alan Weiss, The Electroconvulsive Therapy Workbook, 2018
Trepanning was a technique that involved cutting holes into the skull. Trepanning tools, a skull and a photograph of the outcome are illustrated in Photos 2.1.1. and 2.1.2. From ancient times, trepanning had an enthusiastic following for many years and we know it was carried out successfully as trepanned skulls of early man have been found with healed bone edges. Although still used for
An innovative hippocratic cranial intervention for amaurosis in classical Greece
Published in Acta Chirurgica Belgica, 2021
Gregory Tsoucalas, Spyros N. Michaleas, Panagiotis Sideris, Marianna Karamanou
The Corpus Hippocraticum, edited by Littré, discusses amaurosis and its surgical treatments. In a section titled, ‘On Vision’ (Greek: Περί Όψιος, which was translated by Fréderic Jules Sichel (1802-1868), a French physician, ophthalmologist and friend of Littré), medico-philosophers of the Hippocratic school discuss people afflicted by amaurosis and suggest a trans-cranial surgical procedure in the area of the temporal bones: ‘If a person with healthy (intact) eyes presents with loss of vision, in this person you should perform an incision in the temporal cutaneous area. You should remove the skin and saw the cranial bone and remove the fluid which caused high pressure in the orbital area and thus blindness’ [3]. This book is dated in the late fifth–early fourth century BC, presenting the knowledge of that era in ophthalmology as well as previous hallmarks in the same field [13]. The surgery was conducted using a trephine, a surgical instrument used for boring holes. Various types of trephines and surgical probes (Figure 1) existed during this period, and many trepanation procedures likely were performed in the Hellenic peninsula and Aegean islands, indicated by human remains showing signs of skull regeneration. Surgeons who performed trepanning were careful to protect all anatomic structures such as the meninges and the bone tissue in order to be able to distinguish and separate them from the cutaneous layers (Figure 2) [14]. Instructions for cleaning the wound were as follows: ‘If there is a cavity beneath, it ought to be incised clear around with a circular incision, or half-way around, to an extent corresponding to the nature of the case. In every case with complications (erysipelas, pus, oedema, infection-greenish tissue), the area should be cleaned out in the direction most suitable to the particular cases, either upwards or downwards’ [15].
The influence of Arabic medicine on surgery in the Low Countries1
Published in Acta Chirurgica Belgica, 2020
Fijens advises Albucasis’ s burning by a circular hot iron to open the skin and gallea,41 freeing the surface of the skull, so as to easily use the modiolus for piercing the bone. Hereby does the use of a security type of trephine, named ‘ababtista’ by the Arab scholars, offer the least chance of damaging the cerebral membranes.42 As well after successful trephining as after scraping the skull, the wound is cleansed and closed over the bony opening.