Some 900 years ago, a Peruvian healer used a hand drill to make dozens of small holes in a patient's skull.
Researchers excavating burial caves in the south-central Andean province of Andahuaylas in Peru, found evidence that Peruvian healers practiced trepanation - a surgical process that involves removing a section of the cranial vault using a hand drill or a scraping tool - more than 1,000 years ago.
This advanced medical procedure helped to treat a variety of ailments, from head injuries to heartsickness.
The study shows that the Peruvian healers tried different techniques and experimented with different ways of cutting into the skull. Sometimes they were successful and the patient recovered, and sometimes things didn't go so well. "We can tell a trepanation is healed because we see these finger-like projections of bone that are growing, Kurin said.
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