Medieval surgery stuns the experts

[emad]

By Mark Prigg, Evening Standard Science Correspondent
5 October 2004

A man who had suffered a near fatal blow to the head was operated on to remove bone fragments and relieve pressure on his brain.

Days after the complex cranial surgery, the 40-year- old patient recovered fully and returned to work.

A routine if tricky operation these days, but what has surprised experts is that it was performed about 1,000 years ago on a peasant in North Yorkshire.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/13604819?source=Evening%20Standard

Same old National Health Service.........

[Wat_Tyler]

1. Odd, I was just reading about Wharram Percy last week.

One of Yorkshire's lost villages.

[Magrittes Pipe]

2. I stun ALL the experts when I perform medieval surgery upon them.

I am one hell of a barber!

[bmbmd]

3. Theodoric of York

could trepan like nobody's business!

[noonwitch]

11. That's what I immediately thought of when I saw this.

Leeches!

[jobycom]

4. This is encouraging news, since we may soon

have to learn how to live in the middle ages again, barring a Kerry victory.

[jobycom]

5. My favorite medieval medical story

was told by Usama ibn Munqidh, a minor nobleman in the Holy Land during the crusades. A yong Arab doctor told him about trying to help the Franks. One woman had a fever and one man had a leg infection. He treated the woman by changing her diet, and her fever started to cure. He treated the man with poltices, and his leg started to heal. Then a Frank doctor showed. He declared the woman had a demon in her head, so he scratched a cross into her scalp and rubbed salt into it. She died. He told the man with the infection he would have to live with one leg or die with two. The man opted for one leg. They held him down and chopped off his leg with a woodax, but the blade shattered the bone and the man died.

The young Muslim doctor returned to his people, having, in his words "learned much I did not know before."

[qnr]

6. I have no links or details

but I know I read a book about a decade ago that was discussing our ancestors and talked about how surprised people were at finding evidence of such surgery at a (possibly French or perhaps Hungarian or something) prehistoric burial site.

[lgreen]

8. I read a book

called the Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age. Very interesting book- it had a couple of chapters regarding pregistoric medicine and surgery. Was this it?

[miss_kitty]

7. people just HAVE to pick at stuff

I would say I had some of the finest medieval surgery just a couple years ago...

[no name no slogan]

9. He must have been injured in 100 A.D., then

A 900-year wait for urgent surgery from the British NHS is about average these days, IIRC. Thank you Maggie Thatcher.

[cally]

10. I forget the links, but a PBS show illustrated a modern day

native group that routinely performs brain surgery. The tribes culture requres much physical combat so many young men have brain injuries. The healers drill into the brain to relieve the pressure. Most survive this surgery.

I asked a friend about this whose husband is a reknown brain surgeon and she had heard about it. Our heads have few nerve endings and you can drill into the skull with little pain. If you have a concussion and relieve the swelling in the brain, you do save lives.

Our ancestors knew more about medicine than we give them credit for.

[Chovexani]

12. That's the truth

IIRC the ancient Greeks also performed brain surgery.

Can you imagine how advanced a civilization we'd be if the Library of Alexandria hadn't been destroyed? It's really depressing to think about.