Notes and Comments. 339 
carinates.’ We are not quite sure of the object of the con- 
tribution, but the following is the concluding paragraph :— 
POINTED PALAOLITHS. 
“The author has conducted various experiments in flaking 
flints, and finds that the easiest way to make an implement 
of the pointed type is to proceed as if it were desired to make 
one of the rostro-carinate form. He has found that the remains 
of the dorsal plane appear as a lateral platform on the specimens 
he has made, and that the outline of the rostro-carinate is 
sometimes preserved. Lateral platforms appear on ovate 
implements, but as these were in all probability evolved from 
specimens of the pointed type, by the simple method of sub- 
stituting a rounded cutting edge for the pointed end, the 
occurrence of such lateral platforms upon these specimens 
is easily explained.’ 
TREPHINING. 
Dr. T. Wilson Parry favours us with a reprint of his paper 
in the Journal of the British Archeological Association on 
“The Art of Trephining among Prehistoric and Primitive 
Peoples ; their motives for its practice and methods of pro- 
cedure. * He reviews the various instances of prehistoric 
skulls having been operated upon during the lives of their 
owners, five examples of which are known from Great Britain. 
He shows how the holes were probably made in the skulls, 
and though the operations were severe, and necessarily of a 
primitive character, the bone in many cases is shown to have 
healed. 
SKULLS AND CHARMS. 
The researches of Professor P. Broca, among the prehistoric 
skulls of France, show that ‘ during the Neolithic Period a 
surgical operation was practised which consisted of making 
a hole in the skull, for treatment of certain internal disorders. 
This operation was performed almost, if not quite, exclusively 
on children. The skulls of those individuals who survived 
this operation of trephining were considered to be possessed 
with special endowments of a mystical order, and when the 
individuals died, rounds or fragments were often cut out of 
their skulls to serve as amulets, that part bordering on the 
healed edge of the opening being taken in preference.’ It is 
perhaps rather remarkable that among the exceptionally large 
collection of prehistoric skulls from East Yorkshire barrows, 
preserved in the Mortimer Museum, no trace of trephining has 
been observed. 

* See also The Lancet, June 13th, t914, and The Medical Press and 
Civeulay, July 8th and 15th, 1914. 
16 Nov. 1. 
