ABSTRACT
The most extraordinary story in the history of early surgery is that, long before man could read or write, as long ago as 10000 bc, surgeons were performing the operation of trephination or trepanning – boring or cutting out rings or squares of bones from the skull. Although the words ‘trepanation’ and ‘trephination’ are interchangeable in common practice, trepanation comes from the Greek wordtrypanon, meaning a borer, while trephination is of more French origin and indicates an instrument ending in a sharp point, so it implies using a cutting instrument revolving around a central spike. Trepanation thus connotes scraping or cutting, while trephination describes drilling the skull, as in modern neurosurgical operations. Trephination was commonly performed, always as a treatment of some form of head injury. Circumcision might well be claimed to be the most Ancient ‘elective’ operation and was practised in Ancient Egypt by assistants to the priests on the priests and on members of royal families.
