Note 22 — Chapter VI · Industry, Commerce, and Social Organization; Fights, Wounds and Trepanation.

This last fact has been proved beyond a doubt by the discovery of numerous bones with the old wounds completely cicatrized. “In several examples,” says Dr. Prunières, speaking in this connection, “we can make out the fractures set with a neatness which gives us a very high opinion of the skill of the Neolithic bone setters. The setting of one fracture at the lower end of the tibia and of another at the neck of the femur, are not inferior to what we should expect from the most skilful surgeons of the globe.”22 A remarkable fact truly, but one often met with in the most widely separated regions of the earth, the importance of which cannot be overrated, and justifies the giving of a few more details.