Neuroscience
This article from The Guardian is representative of several published today about an historical discovery being reported in the U.K:
- Robert The Bruce's Skull Size Shows He Had High Iq
In a paper featuring an irresistible mix of history and psychology, researchers have estimated Robert the Bruce's IQ from his skull size and concluded that he was a highly intelligent man. Ian Deary and colleagues first established the relationship...
- Virtual Skulls: Research Applications
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website, a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Virtual skull could lead to better crash helmets Last Updated: Thursday, August 9, 2007 | 8:57 AM ET Australian Broadcasting Corporation A...
- Five Surgeons From Penn Neurosurgery Earn 'top Doc' Honors
Each year, Philadelphia magazine recognizes the area’s outstanding doctors in their Top Doctors issue. The list is viewed as a “gold standard for those seeking the finest medical care in the Philadelphia area.” We are pleased to announce that five...
- Five Surgeons From Penn Neurosurgery Earn 'top Doc' Honors
Each year, Philadelphia magazine recognizes the area’s outstanding doctors in their Top Doctors issue. The list is viewed as a “gold standard for those seeking the finest medical care in the Philadelphia area.” We are pleased to announce that five...
- Penn Neurosurgery Hosts Neuro-oncology And Skull Base Course
This past weekend, Penn Neurosurgery hosted a comprehensive three-day continuing medical education (CME) program in Neuro-Oncology and Skull Base Surgery. The course focused on advances and innovative treatment of gliomas and brain metastasis, the use...
Neuroscience
Brain Surgery Circa The Year 960
This article from The Guardian is representative of several published today about an historical discovery being reported in the U.K:
Skull found at Anglo-Saxon site shows evidence of surgery[snip]
Martin Wainwright
Wednesday October 6, 2004
The Guardian
The history of brain surgery is being rewritten after the discovery of a skull which shows that complex operations were performed in Anglo-Saxon England.
A century before the Norman invasion of 1066, a doctor or itinerant healer was delicately removing scraps of skull from a 40-year-old Yorkshire peasant who had been whacked on the head.
It was such a skilful operation that a large depression on the man's brain was relieved and fractures in the bone healed. According to English Heritage archaeologists, the patient lived for many years after the operation, finally dying of unrelated causes.
His treatment, which also involved lifting a large patch of scalp measuring 10cm by 9cm (4in by 3.5in), was known to Greek physicians as trepanning, but had been assumed lost in the west after the fall of Rome and the loss of Alexandria's famous library. Nothing like the skull, part of a hoard of 700 skeletons unearthed at the deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy in Yorkshire, has previously been found.
Simon Mays, skeletal biologist at English Heritage's centre for archaeology, said: "This skull predates medieval written accounts of such surgery by at least 100 years. It is a world away from notions that Anglo-Saxon healers were all about spells and potions."
The patient had been savagely hit with a blunt instrument, probably a farming tool, which inflicted a severe fracture on the left side of his skull. The unknown surgeon, working around the year 960, remodelled healthy bone as well as removing broken splinters. The remaining gap in the skull later closed over with scar tissue.
Work on the village's bones has been going on since 1990, when one of the longest and most thorough excavations in British archaeological history ended after 40 years. Many revisions of conventional history have followed earlier discoveries and analysis of remains.[ ... Read the full article ... ]
The English Heritage team hopes that further evidence will explain why such a complex operation was performed on a peasant, whose status was identified by nutritional evidence and burial site. Mr Mays said: "Medical skills were largely reserved for the elite, and physicians attracted widespread cynicism because of their fees.
"The treatment handed out to Wharram's peasant doesn't square at all with our knowledge of the period. It seems most probable that the operation was performed by an itinerant healer of unusual skill, whose medical acumen was handed down through oral tradition."
- Robert The Bruce's Skull Size Shows He Had High Iq
In a paper featuring an irresistible mix of history and psychology, researchers have estimated Robert the Bruce's IQ from his skull size and concluded that he was a highly intelligent man. Ian Deary and colleagues first established the relationship...
- Virtual Skulls: Research Applications
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website, a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Virtual skull could lead to better crash helmets Last Updated: Thursday, August 9, 2007 | 8:57 AM ET Australian Broadcasting Corporation A...
- Five Surgeons From Penn Neurosurgery Earn 'top Doc' Honors
Each year, Philadelphia magazine recognizes the area’s outstanding doctors in their Top Doctors issue. The list is viewed as a “gold standard for those seeking the finest medical care in the Philadelphia area.” We are pleased to announce that five...
- Five Surgeons From Penn Neurosurgery Earn 'top Doc' Honors
Each year, Philadelphia magazine recognizes the area’s outstanding doctors in their Top Doctors issue. The list is viewed as a “gold standard for those seeking the finest medical care in the Philadelphia area.” We are pleased to announce that five...
- Penn Neurosurgery Hosts Neuro-oncology And Skull Base Course
This past weekend, Penn Neurosurgery hosted a comprehensive three-day continuing medical education (CME) program in Neuro-Oncology and Skull Base Surgery. The course focused on advances and innovative treatment of gliomas and brain metastasis, the use...