Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/31

 statements the fact may be mentioned that trepanned skulls belonging to the neolithic period have been dug up in various parts of the world—in most of the countries of Europe, in Algiers, in the Canary Islands, and in both North and South America. From a careful study of these skulls it has been learned that the individuals upon whom such severe surgical work had been done—sometimes as often as three separate times—recovered from the operation. The instruments used were made of sharpened flint (saws or chisels). Pain in the head, spasms or convulsions, and mental disorders are suggested by Neuburger as the indications which probably led to the performance of the trepanning. This author also makes the further statement that the ancient Egyptians employed knives made of flint for opening the dead bodies which they were about to embalm and for the operation of circumcision. Recent excavations have thrown additional light upon the state of medical knowledge during this neolithic age. Thus, there have been found specimens of anchylosed joints, of fractured bones, of flint arrow heads lodged in different parts of the skeleton, of rhachitis, of caries and necrosis of bone, etc. The following quotation is taken from the printed report of a lecture recently delivered in London by Dr. F. M. Sandwith, Consulting Surgeon to the Khedive of Egypt. Speaking of certain excavations made in the Nubian Desert and of the oldest surgical implements yet discovered, he says:—

In one place a graveyard was found, and here were remains of bodies with fractured limbs that had been set with bark splints. One was a right thigh bone that had been broken, and was still held in position by a workmanlike splint and bandages. All the knots were true reef-knots, and the wrappings showed how the strips of palm-fibre cloth were set just as a good surgeon would set them in these days so as to use the full strength of the fabric.

Among the most ancient remedies may be mentioned talismans, amulets and medicine stones, which were furnished—presumably at a price—by the physician-priests, and which were believed to afford the wearers protection