8 PREHISTOEIO TREPniNING. 



cases in which the operation had resulted fatally in a very short time, and 

 before any process of repair had commenced. To this it may be replied 

 that no examples have hitherto been found of skulls or rondelles where the 

 section was in 2)rocess of cicatrization ; all are either entirely fresh, or long 

 since healed." It would be unreasonable to suppose that these operations 

 were entirely successful or else immediately fatal. The operation, in itself, 

 is not very dangerous to life, as has been shown by mauj^ experiments on 

 animals. Its mortality as a surgical measure, in cases of fracture of the 

 skull, is due to the serious injury to the brain for which it becomes neces- 

 sary to employ it. 



A more convincing reply is that, in the greater number of the trephined 

 skulls in question, the two sections coexist; a portion exhibiting the rounded, 

 ivory surface of ancient cicatrization, the rest of the section being absolutely 

 fresh. (See Plates I, V, and VI.) 



The suggestion that these apertures were the result of blows from 

 weapons must be at once dismissed. No weapon of that day, or this, could 

 produce such openings with their well-defined, beveled edges. The blows 

 of stone hammers or axes i-esulted generally in necrosis, or death of the 

 bone, and often in disruption or bulging of tlie inner table of the skull for 

 some distance from the seat of injury. Some excellent examples of the 

 consequences of such formidable injuries are to be seen in an article by Dr. 

 F. W. Langdon, describing the crania in a prehistoric cemetery at Madison- 

 ville, Ohio.^ Tlie accompanying plate (Plate III), copied Ijy Dr. Langdon's 

 permission, well illustrates the striking difference between the results of 

 blows followed by necrosis of the bone, and the condition succeeding the 

 operation of trephining. 



The apertures made by the so-called surgical trephining do not differ 

 greatly in size; they are nearly always elliptical, seldom round, and extend 

 from 35 to 50 millimeters in length, bv 6 to 10 millimeters in breadth. The 

 edges are very oblique, at the expense of the outer table of the skull. The 

 operation appears to have been performed upon all parts of the head, 



•■Some more recent discoveries, however, ■nlilch will be referred to later, show that this assertion 

 of Broca's was rather too sweeping. 



'The Madison villo prehistoric cemetery; anthropological notes. By F. VV. Langdon, M. D. Jour- 

 nal of the Cincinnati Soc. Nat. Hist., iv, Oct., 1881, 250-253. 



