'14 PREHISTORIO TREPHININC;, 



groove cut around them, apparently for the purpose of suspending them from 

 the neck. (Plate I, Fig. 5.) 



It now remains to give some account of Broca's theory as to the pur- 

 pose of this surgical and post-mortem trephining. He rejected the theory 

 that the surgical operation in early life was performed on account of fracture 

 or disease of the bone, nothing whatever in tlie relics seeming to indicate 

 such conditions. He was, at one time, disposed to think that the operation 

 had a religious or superstitious motive, and that It indicated initiation into 

 some sacred order; but the extent of the discoveries of trephined skulls, 

 and the fact that women as well as men were subjected to the operation, 

 obliged him to give up that view. His concuision was that, in all probability, 

 the operation was performed as a cure for convulsions, simple or epileptic. 

 Trephining as a curative treatment for epilepsy has been practiced some- 

 what extensively in our own day, but it is now entirely abandoned, except 

 in cases of traumatic epilepsy, when the manifestation of the disorder has 

 been coincident with an injury to the skull. In such cases, removal of de- 

 pressed fragments of boiie is clearly indicated, and has, in many instances, 

 been followed by entire disappearance of the epileptic fits. 



In the curious storehouse of absurdities which our ancient Materia 

 Medica exhibits, powdered bone from the human skull, as well as poAvdered 

 mummy, figure as unfailing remedies for epilepsy. Sometimes the bone 

 was to be calcined, and the supplementary ossicles of the skull, known as 

 ossa Worniiana, were in high repute for this purpose, in old works the 

 title of OS antiepilecticum was an ordinary name for a Wormian bone. 



For many ages epileptics were believed to he possessed of devils and 

 to be tit subjects for exorcism. When, in obedience to spell or potent com- 

 mand, the evil spirit left the sufferer, or, in other words, when the fit was 

 over, it was through the open mouth that the exit was made. There is a 

 cut in a curious old German block-book representing the well-known inci- 

 dent of the epileptic of the New Testament. The mouth of the man is 

 painfully distended, and the horned head of a small imp is visi1)le emerging 

 from his throat. The herd of swine, imconscious of the impending catas- 

 trophe, are watching the proceeding. It is not difficult to imagine how 

 appropriate it would appear to make an opening in the skull for the escape 



