In 1864, the American Ephraim George Squier had an experience he could hardly have anticipated.
He was holding in his hands the first unquestionable evidence of something scientists had long dismissed as impossible: ancient neurosurgery.
He owed it, in a sense, to bird poop.
With the outbreak of the US Civil War in 1861, securing fertilizer for food became a strategic necessity for President Abraham Lincoln.
And the best fertilizer in the world was found on islands in South America that were home to mountains of guano accumulated over centuries.
For this reason, in 1864 Lincoln sent a delegation to Peru to ensure such a vital supply. Squier was part of it.
The Lady “of the Grand Canal”
Once the matter was concluded, the diplomat told his wife to return to New York alone since he wanted to spend several months exploring the country, dedicated to his true passion: archeology.
This is how, after a year traveling from the coasts to the jungles and climbing to the peaks of the Andes, he arrived in Cuzco, a “haughty but isolated city of the Sierra”.
It was a place that was reached in more time and with four times more “discomfort and fatigue” from the Peruvian capital than if one traveled from Lima to New York, he wrote in his book “Peru: exploration and travel incidents in the land of the Incas”.
After meticulously describing the magnificent archaeological sites that he found in the area, as well as the city, its history, its population and modern appearance, he stopped for a moment in one place:
“I am going to refer especially to the residence of Mrs. Zentinoa lady who lived in the Plaza de San Francisco, whose attentions to foreigners was proverbial, and who established an honorable reputation as a collector of the best and most valuable museum of antiquities in Peru.
“This house would be called a ‘palace’ even in Venice, if not for its architecture, then certainly for its size. In the spaciousness of its apartments and their rich and varied content and decoration, it would commendably compare with some of the most beautiful on the Grand Canal.”
museum of curiosities
“Madame Zentino” was Maria Ana Centeno de Romainville (1816/1817-1874), a woman enriched by “frequent reading” who began collecting at a young age with a “passion bordering on madness”according to the account of the pioneering Peruvian educator Elvira García y García in her book “The Peruvian woman through the centuries” (1925).
That passion led her to treasure pieces from different places, until she had a “historical-archaeological museum, through which the entire history of Peru in its different eras could be followed.”
In addition to pre-Columbian antiquities made of stone, ceramics or precious metals, it had everything from a Roman mosaic and Japanese objects to stuffed birds and mysterious works, since Its purpose had not been “to form an archaeological museum but, rather, of curiosities”Garcia y Garcia said.
Senora Centeno’s “palace” was a meeting place similar to the halls of the Enlightenment in Europe, where the Cuzco elite and prominent foreign guests came to talk about science, art, and literature.
One of them was Squier, and that was where he first got his hands on that unusual jewel that would change the history of surgery.
“In certain ways, the most important relic in the collection of Mrs. Zentino is the frontal bone of a skull, from the Inca cemetery in the Yucay Valley,” the American wrote.
The cranium
What caught his eye was a 15x17mm square hole, which he examined carefully.
It wasn’t natural, he thought: nature doesn’t usually work at right angles..
In addition, he thought he saw signs of new bone growth, indicating that the person had not only been alive during the cut, but had survived.
An astonishing thought occurred to him: could it be the result of deliberate surgery, a drilling into the skull for curative purposes?
He concluded that there was no doubt that he was facing “a clear case of trephination before death”.
“The lady kindly gave it to me for research, and it has been criticized by the best surgeons in the US and Europe, and considered by all to be the most remarkable evidence of aboriginal surgical knowledge yet discovered on this continent. ; Well, trephination is one of the most difficult surgical processes, ”Squier recounted in his book.
But it wasn’t that simple.
Impossible!
Squier published his account of the Peruvian adventure in 1877, but for some reason omitted that when he presented the skull at a meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine on his return to the United States, the public refused to believe it. that someone could have survived a trephination operation carried out by a Peruvian indigenous person.
The idea that the ancient Incas could perform such delicate surgery without anesthesia or metal tools seemed to them simply absurd.
The survival rate for trepanations performed by their most skilled surgeons in the best hospitals of the time rarely reached 10%.
What they did not take into account is that the same thing happened with other operations, since the germ theory would triumph in a few years, so that the great cause of death in hospitals was infection from dirt.
Squier didn’t give up.
He packed up his Inca skull and took it to France for examination by the foremost European authority on the human skull, Paul Broca, professor of external pathology and clinical surgery at the University of Paris and founder of the first anthropological society.
Definitely
Broca had become world famous in 1861 for discovering the first known language point in the human brain, now called Broca’s area, the first case of brain localization of a psychological function.
His craniometric skills and anthropological studies were also admired.
So when, after studying the square hole, he concluded that its shape must have been deliberate and, after examining it under the microscope and finding evidence of bone growth around it, declared that the patient had survived the operation, Squier’s suspicions were unequivocally corroborated.
Despite Broca’s prestige, when he reported these conclusions to the Paris Anthropological Society, the audience hesitated.
But a few years later, the discovery in central France of skulls with rounded holes, rim scars, and bone discs of the same size (perhaps used as amulets) confirmed Broca’s interpretation, finally demonstrating that the Neolithic could trepan with success.
Scientists were left with no choice but to consider the possibility that they had been underestimating ancient cultures. in that regard until then.
To reevaluate!
The Inca skull stimulated an opening to previously unknown knowledge.
With eyes suddenly openanthropologists began going through their own collections and examining holes of various shapes that had been misinterpreted as the result of war injuries, accidents, or animal attacks.
They found more trepanned skulls, some of which dated to 8000 BC.
Now we know that it was a widespread practice and that different cultures around the world used a variety of tools to cut skulls: sharp stones, animal bones, red-hot irons, even shark teeth.
In the case of Peru, burial sites often contain a tumi – a curved metal ceremonial knife – which seems well suited for such procedures.
And, based on research done after the truth came out, it would appear that those early neurologists they knew how to do what the europeans and americans still not so much.
One such study indicates that ancient physicians were able to prevent infection: of 66 ancient trepanned skulls, only three showed signs of infection.
A similar result was produced by a report made in London in the 1870s which showed that in that city the 75% of neurosurgical patients died while at the same time in New Guinea, where surgeons were still drilling skulls with traditional methods, the death rate was 30%.
Why
What is not known for sure is why ancient cultures trepanned, since nothing was written.
Broca always argued that they trepanned skulls to release the evil spirits trapped inside the brain. He claimed this was especially common with epilepsy or hallucinations, illnesses often associated with evil spirits.
That is certainly something that was done in Europe, but there is no evidence that it was the case in that more remote past.
Squier and other archaeologists have always doubted the spirit theory.
They argued that the ancient neurosurgeons were doing exactly what they seemed to be doing.: treat head injuries, mainly from falls and combat.
And modern research points more to that reason, particularly among the Incas.
More skulls with burr holes have been found in men than in women, which is interpreted as a result of the fact that there were more male warriors than female warriors.
These holes are usually on the left side of the skull, where a right-handed opponent would strike with their weapon.
The trephinations would have been a way to clean the wounds and prevent blood from pooling.
Superstition may have played a role in the early trepanations.
But it is also likely that those ancient neurosurgeons used them to save people’s lives, as their peers continue to do today. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
