ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 49 



in many parts of Germany, in Denmark, Russia, Portugal, and 

 Algeria. [A full account was given of these explorations.] Noth- 

 ing of the kind has, so far, been found in Great Britain. 



In the United States no specimen that can be classed with the 

 custom under discussion has been discovered. In 1875, Mr. Henry 

 Gilman described some perforated crania which he had exhumed 

 from mounds on Sable river, but the aperture was, in each case, at 

 the vertex, and unmistakeably produced on the dried skull. 



The famous Inca skull brought by Mr. Squier from. Peru, and 

 presented to the Paris Society of Anthropology, exhibits a remark- 

 able instance of trephining which the patient must have survived 

 about ten days, in the opinion of Broca and Nelaton. The opera- 

 tion, however, was entirely unlike that of the neolithic age; two 

 incisions, made apparently by a saw, were crossed by two others at 

 right angles, thus removing a square piece of bone. Mr. Squier 

 was of opinion that the skull was of undoubted pre-Columbian 

 date. 



Since the publication of Broca's papers on this subject, discov- 

 eries have been made showing that prehistoric trephining was some- 

 times practised on grown persons, and for diseases of the bones of 

 the cranium. Another curious discovery was made of skulls (about 

 twenty in all) in which an incomplete operation had been per- 

 formed, the outer table, only, having been scraped away. A simi- 

 lar operation has in later times been recommended for the cure of 

 epilepsy. 



It has been suggested that the tonsure of priests was a perpetua- 

 tion of this curious custom. 



The conclusions arrived at by the writer were these : 



1. The large number of perforated neolithic crania exhibiting 

 cicatrized edges, establishes the existence of a custom of trephin- 

 ing. 



2. The operation was performed on both sexes, and generally at 

 an early age. 



3. The purpose is doubtful, but from analogy it would seem to 



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