Talk:Trepanning

Tripanation

In ancient times, holes were drilled into a person who was behaving in what was considered an abnormal way to let out what people believed were evil spirits. Evidence of trepanation has been found in prehistoric human remains from Neolithic times onward. The bone that was trepanned was kept by the prehistoric people and may have been worn as a charm to keep evil spirits away. Evidence also suggests that trepanation was primitive emergency surgery after head wounds to remove shattered bits of bone from a fractured skull and clean out the blood that often pools under the skull after a blow to the head. Hunting accidents, falls, wild animals, and weapons such as clubs or spears could have caused such injuries. Trepanations appear to have been most common in areas where weapons that could produce skull fractures were used. The primary theories for the practice of trepanation in ancient times include spiritual purposes and treatment for epilepsy, head wound, mental disorders, and headache, although the latter may be just an unfounded myth. 2409:4085:9C93:78F0:0:0:9C0B:C90F (talk) 09:12, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

If you look at the citation and where they get their source then it mentions 0 things about mental disorders IN ANCIENT TIMES. just that it was epilepsy and head wounds 2001:BB8:2002:E8:4880:BB6C:3A27:986E (talk) 13:25, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Another error with the citations

There is a sentence "At the time only around 40% of people survived the procedure.[9]" the cited sources clearly say 70% if you go look at it. I'm not sure if it's deliberate, but definitely problematic. 2001:BB8:2002:E8:4880:BB6C:3A27:986E (talk) 14:02, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Trepanation is still a procedure used in cryonics

Current human and animal cryopreservation procedures involve trepanation holes in order to monitor cerebral edema, assess perfusion quality in real time, and prevent intracranial pressure. I’m surprised this wasn’t mentioned in the article. Syd Lonreiro (talk) 19:17, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

"Cultural perspectives" section seems to be inadequate

Just been going through and tidying up a fair amount of grammar errors and typos in this section, but I feel it needs a greater rewriting. I've not checked through the citations yet, but the body of this section of the article itself is quite unclear.

It contradicts the prior section which shows, seemingly with quite reliable citation, that the perspective of trepanning for headaches is mostly a modern misconception. This section however immediately claims the opposite. It jumps from culture to culture rapidly, making points with little logical connection to one another, and often these points themselves are unclear. I've tried to tidy it, adding in a lot of conjunctions that were missing, but even then the points themselves are a bit too vague.

Gathering together a suitable suite of anthropological sources to actually argue what cultural perspectives of trepanning were is a bit beyond my abilities currently. If anybody else here with more experience is willing and able, I feel like a good look through the sources and their findings would be quite useful. Sarcasmatbest (talk) 11:00, 4 June 2026 (UTC)