Primitive trephining in Peru / [Manuel Antonio Muñiz].

  • Muñiz, Manuel Antonio, 1861-1897.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Primitive trephining in Peru / [Manuel Antonio Muñiz]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    country, and indeed by the range of current thought in America and Europe. Practitioners, like other men, first learn how and then learn why to act through action; the zealous physician scans memory and record of cases in the effort to find a treatment which gives promise of saving his patient; he can not forget trephining, for the records are full of it, his clientele remind him of it, and his rural neighbor per- chance practices it on his beast, lie can and does weigh the risk as shown by the results of empiric practice; he can and does consider the physiologic conditions and etiologic bearings of the operation; and in the end the operation is performed or not, as the best judgment of prac- titioner or consultation may decide. Yet in every case the decision is based largely on the record, and the treatment, if adopted at all, is adopted largely if not mainly by reason of empiric experience rather than by reason of etiologic considerations; indeed, the layman may well question whether the desperate operation of trephining (in con- tradistinction from simple elevation or extraction of bony fragments in case of depressed fracture) would have been introduced before plastic and intestinal surgery had it not come down from the prehistoric past, a legacy from the darkest ages. In this way the genesis and development of one of the most remark- able features of medical practice may be traced with a fair if not high degree of certainty. The explanation seems safe, because it rests on well-established fact at many points; it seems just, because it is in close accord with all that is known of the evolution of methods and motives among men. The course of development thus traced is not only of interest in itself and in its bearings on the trephining of Peru, but is of much significance in its relation to the development of other branches of surgery and medicine. It remains to interpret the Muniz collection in the light of the his- tory of trephining as thus outlined, and then to consider the facts revealed in this collection as bearing on the history. THE CRANIA IN DETAIL Common Features Collectively the crania are notably small and variable in form, as indicated by the illustrations, which depict different aspects on a scale of two-thirds linear. With one possible exception, all are adult and some fully mature, as indicated by the condition of the sutures. Considered collectively the cranial bones are remarkably thick and strong, only one or two of the specimens approaching the Caucasian normal in respect to thinness. The tendon and muscle attachments are notably prominent, rugose, and striated, indicating vigorous phys- ical development. In several cases the supernumerary interparietals known to archeologists as u Inca bones'’ are found. In one fully adult specimen the metopic suture is distinctly preserved; and in general the sutures, especially the lambdoid and the posterior portion of the sagittal, are remarkably crenulate.