ABSTRACT
A curious form of quackery which prevailed in the seventeenth century and which was taken as a subject for painting by several Dutch artists (the illustration here is a seventeeth-century drawing on parchment by Pieter Jansz Quast of Amsterdam). It consisted of treating headache or supposed brain disease by extracting a stone from the head. An incision was made in the scalp and the quack took out a stone which he had ready for the purpose—and the patient was cured!
