Courtesy, The Hindu excerpts regarding an extraordinary find that indicates ‘Brain surgery’ during Harappan civilisation…
…Scientists at the Anthropological Survey of India claim to have found evidence of an ancient brain surgical practice on a Bronze Age Harappan skull. The skull, believed to be around 4,300 years old, bears an incision that indicates an “unequivocal case” of a surgical practice known as trepanation, says a research paper published in the latest edition of Current Science.
Trepanation, a common means of surgery practised in prehistoric societies starting with the Stone Age, involved drilling or cutting through the skull vault, often to treat head injury or to remove bone splinters or blood clots caused by a blow to the head.
…The procedure has, in some parts of the world, also been associated with religious rituals and “to ward off evil spirits”. However, in the case of the Harappa skull, the trepanation was intended as therapeutic as there is a clear indication of cranial trauma in the form of a visible linear depression, probably resulting from a severe blow, says the study by A.R. Sankhyan and G.R. Schug.There is evidence too of healing, “indicating that the victim survived for a considerable time after the operation,” the paper adds.
Why has this not been reported elsewhere in media? Google news tells me that the only other mention of this news-story is in The Telegraph (from Koklata). Strange.
