Note 28 — Chapter VI · Industry, Commerce, and Social Organization; Fights, Wounds and Trepanation.

We meet with numerous examples of trepanation in America, and fresh discoveries are daily made by the energetic men of science in that country. Dr. Mantegazza28 mentions three examples of trepanation from Peru, which are of very great interest. One skull, still bound up in many cloths, was found in the Sanja-Huara Cave (province of Anta), which had been twice trepanned, and on which yet two more attempts at trepanation bad been made. The latter seem to have taken place at different times, and death seems to have succeeded the last operation. Another skull which had belonged to an adult of Huarocondo has two frontal openings close to each other; the upper, of elliptical shape, is of large size and was evidently made after death. Yet another skull from the province of Ollantay-tambo bears a double trepanation, evidently made during life. The healing of the parietal opening proves that it was made before the wound in the forehead, in which the edges have remained rough. Dr. Mantegazza thinks that in the two first cases the operations took place after the patient had been wounded, but that in the third, the patient operated upon bad been epileptic or perhaps even insane. We find it difficult to follow the learned professor here, as w e are ignorant of the grounds for his conclusions.