this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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We have evidence of trepanning (drilling holes in the skull) going back to the flint tools time period. We still use this today to release pressure after a bleed in the skull.
It was a lot more brutal and had a much lower success rate back then. But the fact that we find so many skulls with evidence of trepanning means that prehistoric humans must have considered the low success rate worth the risk. What's interesting is there's no way they actually knew what trepanning could help with, since it's to do with intracranial pressure. So in the same way the medieval cure for everything was bleeding, whether or not the disease had anything to do with blood, trepanning seems to have been the proverbial hammer for which everything looks like a nail.
I mean, even on a mild headache you feel like the inside of your head is swallen, even if you don't know what a brain is. Imagine a traumatic fall, fever and constant pain. After the tenth time you see that happening you grab a stone and try nad fix it.