A photo from open sources
In Peru, a total of several hundred ancient skulls were found. with traces of drilling (trepanation). But even more surprising is the fact that two thousand years ago this operation was carried out much more professionally than, say, in the 19th century during the civil war in the united states.
As the researchers write (material recently published in the journal World Neurosurgery), mortality after craniotomy in antiquity did not exceed 20 percent, while in the XIX century it reached 60 percent.
Inca surgeons, scientists say, were amazing specialists, performing complex operations unknown to us instruments and, apparently, even without anesthesia.
Unfortunately, one of the authors of the article, professor, notes Miami University David Kouchner we still don’t know why at that far time such a difficult operation was carried out. Maybe, thus the Incas fought headaches or treated mental illness – in any case, the level of surgery was exceptionally high.
A photo from open sources
Most of the skulls with traces of trepanation belonged to ancient Incas, archaeologists discovered at the turn of the nineteenth – twentieth centuries in funerary caves in Peru. IN quantitatively, they are significantly superior to all others similar finds in the world. It turns out that craniotomy was known in antiquity, but the Incas – ancestors most often resorted to it modern Peruvians – and this is where this surgery has reached unprecedented results.
According to Kouchner, modern researchers have not only noted high level of skill of long-standing surgeons, but also found out how it mastery gradually grew. So, as far back as 400 – 300 BC survival after trepanation was low. However 2 thousand years back Inca surgeons could already boast of their professionalism. And in the XI-XVI centuries, survival after trepanation of the skull reached here 90 and more percent. At this time, surgeons not only with ease determined the best place for drilling the skull, but also made minimal holes in it.
A photo from open sources
This proves once again that our ideas about people’s lives in the Middle Ages, not to mention antiquity, often not correspond to the truth. In many areas, our distant ancestors possessed knowledge no less than we are now, and in some, for example, the construction of temples and other places of worship, in in many ways even surpassed us …
Civilization Inca Peru
