The magic hole in the head since the Iron Age – 05/06/2023 – Luciano Melo

The magic hole in the head since the Iron Age – 05/06/2023 – Luciano Melo


During an autopsy in 1657, physician Johannes Wepfer found a large, blood-filled cyst between the corpse’s brain and meninges. It was assumed that an “apoplectic stroke” had dictated the fate of the examined body. However, from Wepfer’s hands we have a historic milestone: the first objective description of a chronic subdural hematoma, the real cause of death. A condition caused by trauma and marked by late and progressive symptoms, initiated after a latent period that varies widely from days to months.

Chronic subdural hematomas killed and still kill many people. It is even speculated that Mozart (1756-1791) may have been one of the victims. But 70-year-old lady Antonieta survived this disease. She had hit her head a few times, on the hatch of a closet, that domestic trap located above the bathroom sink. Without much warning, she started to have important memory failures, difficulty speaking, a lot of apathy and, due to weakness, she started dragging her right leg. The changes were subtle at first but got worse day by day.

A CT scan revealed the indiscreet cause of his problems: the heavy bleeding characteristic of a chronic subdural hematoma. She would likely have died had she not been given over to an age-old healing practice.

Archaeologists tell our story by examining the remains of time, such as they are. A skull of a young man, killed in the Iron Age, forms part of this tale. Discovered in China, at an archaeological site in Xinjiang, the mortal remains are marked by signs of violence, probably fatal.

However, in particular, there are carefully drilled holes in the bones and, around, there are no signs of scarring. These findings point to a surgical procedure performed after death or in the final moments of life.

If it was practiced in the last moments, the intervention was a desperate action to save the life of the person in final agony. However, the manner of perforation, in that particular cranial area, would have afflicted important blood vessels and consequently finished off the vital lint. Perhaps the procedure was practiced after death, in a funeral rite. Or, who knows, in an attempt to resuscitate the recently deceased young man.

Trepanation, the process that creates holes in skulls, is one of the oldest surgical acts. It happened in prehistory, on all continents. It was practiced by different civilizations, which did not meet and did not influence each other. In ancient times, the procedure was used to meet some therapeutic proposals, whose meaning still remains for the medicine of today as a treatment for complications of trauma and infections. Trepanation was repeated through the ages and, when applied to Madame Antoinette, cured her. It is the treatment that resolves subdural hematomas.

But there were more functions to practice. For our ancestors, mysticism and magic were alongside the primordial surgical instruments. The hole in the skull would serve to empty the head of bad spirits, the objective was to eliminate possessions. It was also imagined that some noxious material, in sooty vapors, would come out to the outside, it would be the proposed treatment against psychiatric illnesses and headaches. While these extravagances were practiced and supported by outlandish theories, someone had bad luck. The procedure was not applied to cure the “apoplectic stroke”, omission which produced a body for dr. Johannes Wepfer necropsy.

Currently, trepanation in surgical centers is a simple procedure that prevents deaths. However, mysticism and magic remain in the ideology of healing, even if formatted by secular reasoning.

In the 1960s, the desire to increase mental power became the rationale for trepanning. Some Western gurus have argued that closure of cranial sutures in childhood inhibits cerebral pulsations and would reduce our capacities for intense perceptions and diminish our creativity. Drilling a small hole in the cranial bones, therefore, would restore pulse intensity, reestablishing the vigorous cerebral blood supply. As a consequence, better thoughts and more creativity.

John Lennon considered submitting to the process, as a way to evolve according to ancestral methods. Yet another delivery of a simple solution wrapped in trap papers.

It seems that we are always in the midst of two pressures: one that moves us towards novelty and discovery; another that takes us back to the primitive.


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