Trepanation Book Page

Page dimensions: approximately 7×10 inches. Each book page is packaged in a

clear plastic sleeve with a cardboard backing.

Please note: These pictures are representative, not actual, since each block

print is stamped on a different page of the vintage medical journal.

This block-printed book page is created from a line-drawing in "The Surgeon's

Mate," by John Woodall, published in 1639, and is stamped on pages from "The

London Medical Record," published March 15, 1886. Woodall was an English

military surgeon who worked for the East India Company stocking chests of

medical tools for use on ships. He subsequently penned the manual to accompany

the tool chest and included instructions on how to use the tools, including the

trephine.

Trepanation is the process of making a hole in the skull; a medical procedure

that was employed as far back as 6500 BC, during the Neolithic period. Although

written records don't exist from that time period to tell us why trepanning was

done, later reasons included the treatment of epilepsy, headaches, head wounds,

and mental illness. It sounds absolutely barbaric, but modern renditions still

exist. Surgeons use cranial drills to release pressure on the brain and to

conduct neurosurgery. Anesthesia wasn't invented until 1846, which make the

history of trepanation more than a little unsettling.