INCAN SURGEONS WERE SURPRISINGLY SKILLED AT DRILLING HOLES IN PEOPLE’S SKULLS
Thankfully, trepanation – the act of scraping, cutting, or drilling an opening into a person’s cranium to treat everything from headaches, to seizures, or even supposed demonic possession – is a practice largely confined to the past. But if you were ever in need of such an operation, you could do a lot worse than seeking out an Incan surgeon.
After analysing 800 ancient skulls found in Peru that had undergone trepanation, a team at the University of Miami found that the procedures were carried out so expertly that the survival rate was more than 75 per cent – almost double that of those who underwent similar procedures during the American Civil War hundreds of years later. “In Incan times, the mortality rate was between 17 and 25 per cent, and during the Civil War, it was between 46 and 56 per cent. That’s a big difference,” said Dr David S Kushner, who led the research. “The question is, how did the ancient Peruvian surgeons have outcomes that far surpassed those of surgeons during the American Civil War?”
Researchers say the poor hygiene practices seen during the Civil War may have been a contributing factor, but little is known about exactly how the Peruvian surgeons performed the operations.
It is thought that hygiene, or more accurately the lack of it, during the Civil War, may have contributed to the higher mortality rates in the later time period. According to the study, which relied on co-author John W Verano’s extensive field research on trepanation over a nearly 2,000-year period in Peru and a review of the scientific literature about trepanation around the world, Civil War surgeons often used unsterilised medical tools and their bare fingers to prise open cranial wounds or break up blood clots.
“We do not know how the ancient Peruvians prevented infection, but it seems that they did a good job of it,” said Kushner. “Neither do we know what they used as anaesthesia, but since there were so many (cranial surgeries) they must have used something – possibly coca leaves. Maybe there was something else, maybe a fermented beverage. There are no written records, so we just don’t know.”