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.

    51/192 (page 29)
    MUNIZ—MC GKE] OPERATION BY RECTILINEAR INCISION the point of operation, displays a somewhat corroded and spongy appearance, indicating an abnormal condition during life, probably periostitis. Thus there is a suggestion that the operation was ante- mortem, and connected with a diseased condition; and there are indi- cations that the sufferer did not survive the treatment. This cranium displays also a few marks apparently due to old contu- sions or wounds, nearly obliterated by reparative process; the most conspicuous are clearly shown in the reproductions on the right and left of the operation in a somewhat higher horizontal plane (these may be pathologic); and there is a long vertical groove over the left temple. Cranium 3 {Plates VI, VII) I This specimen is much weathered and eroded, no trace of tissue remains, and the weaker bones and processes are fragmentary or absent. The condition of the sutures indicates maturity. A single operation is displayed, revealing a thickness of bone varying from 5 to 7 mm. The operation was performed on the l ight side of the crown, i. e., near the middle of the upper margin of the left parietal, apparently just involving the sagittal suture. While the condition of the skull is not such as to indicate the details of the operation, it evidently consisted in making two pairs of approximately parallel orthogonal incisions, as in the previous cases. The aperture is large, averaging 35 by 40 or 42 mm., measured on the outer surface, and 2 or 3 mm. less in either dimension measured on the interior; but the transverse (and longer) dimensions can not accurately be determined, since the narrow selvage of bone between the superior longitudinal incision and the sagittal suture is lost. The incisions projected somewhat beyond their orthogo- nals, in one case so much as 8 or 9 mm., and the bone is well enough preserved to show that they were V-shape in section, narrowing and shallowing to the termini, as in the preceding specimens. There is nothing to indicate whether the operation was late ante- mortem or early post-mortem, no smoothing of sharp edges, no repara- tive growth, no indications of diseased condition of bone or periosteum, no definite trace or lesion other than that of the operation. Cranium 4 {Plates VIII, IX) This specimen is bleached and somewhat weathered and broken, though in good condition about the locus of the single operation. The sutures are incipiently anchylosed, indicating maturity, though the posterior molars are immature. The cranium is much lighter and thinner than the average of the collection, being fairly comparable in this respect with the Caucasian normal; as revealed in the aperture, the bone ranges from 2 to 34 mm. in thickness.