Hole in My Head

Trepanning. Even the word sounds painful. According to my ‘Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader’ trepanning is the process of boring through your skull for mostly medical purposes. Some interesting trepanning facts:

• skulls as old as 4500 years old have been found in France with trepanning holes
• In one burial site 40 of the 120 skulls had been trepanned. (Perhaps the cause of death?)
• It was done in ancient medicine for all kinds of purposes. Among them: relief of bleeding on the brain, to release evil spirits, release of pressure, allowance of extra oxygen to get to the brain for quicker healing
• It’s still done today, in fact it’s not illegal to do so for psychic reasons (??)
• It is illegal to do on someone else when you’re not a doctor (Two fellows in Utah got  caught doing that)
• One doctor believes that trepanning allows more oxygen to get to the brain, thus allowing for higher brain function – after all, babies experience incredible brain development and their skulls aren’t fused for months!
• It would really, really hurt

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