A HISTORY OF MEDICINE
woman which was found in a cist at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute,
together with a jet necklace, an urn, and a small fragment of
bronze. The skull, which shows a hole in the left frontal bqne_
an inch above the outer angle of the orbit, surrounded by a dense
thickened rim of bone, was described by Dr. Robert Munro in
1891,1 and is now in the museum of the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland. (Plate n.) It is uncertain whether the aperture
was produced by trephining or by disease of the bone*
Trephining as Practised by Modern Primitive Man
Our knowledge of prehistoric trephining would be very
meagre indeed were it not for the fact that the operation is still
performed, or was performed until very recent times, by primitive
races in some widely separated parts of the world, such as the
South Pacific Islands, Caucasia, and Algeria.2
From Melanesia many skulls have been collected which
show perforations closely resembling those found in neolithic
specimens. They have been found in New Guinea and the
neighbouring Bismarck Archipelago, and also in New Caledonia
and the adjoining islands of the Loyalty Group.3 All the tre-
phined openings show healed edges, suggesting that recovery
from the operation was the rule. The Rev. J. A. Crump 4 stated
that in New Britain the operation was practised solely in cases
of fracture, a common occurrence in tribal fights. The instru-
ment employed was a piece of shell or obsidian (volcanic natural
glass), and the wound was dressed with strips of banana stalk,
which is very absorbent. The mortality was about twenty per
cent., but many deaths resulted from the original injury rather
than from the operation (Plate n).
In certain other islands of the South Pacific the operation is
(or was until recently) performed to cure epilepsy, headache,
and insanity; while it is stated that in New Ireland, an island
north of New Guinea, a large number of natives had undergone
I trephining in youth as an aid to longevity.
The practice of trephining in Asia is described by a writer
1 R. Munro, Prehistoric Scotland and its Pte in European Civilization (1899), p. 8*3
9 F. Terrier and M. Peraire, UOpfratm du Tr$xmt Paris, 1895
a I. Brodsky, " Tne Trephinen of Blanche Bay, New Britain," tint. Jaam. &*£„
1938-39, vol. xxvi. p. u
* J, A. Qcump, " Trephining in the South Seas," Jwr, Anthrop. fat. London, 1001,
voLxxxLp, 167 ',»-»•
- ' ' 8 '