Timely Trepanation Tried Truly

Boy saved from blood clot by household drill used by doctor who had never trepanned before. [Link]

A doctor in Australia used a household drill to bore into a boy's skull and drain it of blood clots as his local hospital lacked the required tools.

Dr Rob Carson performed the procedure on Nicholas Rossi, 13, after the boy fell off his bike and hit his head.

The doctor had never attempted the surgery before, and had to be talked through the operation by a Melbourne neurosurgeon.

The boy's father said the doctor's improvisation had saved his son's life.

But Dr Carson told reporters: "It's not a personal achievement, it is just a part of the job."

More on Trapanation.

Trepanation (also known as trepanning, trephination, trephining or making a burr hole) is an antiquated medical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, thus exposing the dura mater in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases. A trephine is an instrument used for cutting out a round piece of skull bone. The modern procedure is known as craniotomy.

Evidence of trepanation has been found in prehistoric human remains from Neolithic times onwards. Cave paintings indicate that people believed the practice would cure epileptic seizures, migraines, and mental disorders.^[1] The bone that was trepanned was kept by the prehistoric people and probably worn as a charm to keep evil spirits away. Evidence also suggests that trepanation was primitive emergency surgery after head wounds^[2] to remove shattered bits of bone from a fractured skull and clean out the blood that often pools under the skull after a blow to the head. Such injuries were typical for primitive weaponry such as slings and war clubs.^[3]

There is some contemporary use of the term. In modern eye surgery a trephine instrument is used in corneal transplant surgery. The procedure of drilling a hole through a fingernail or toenail is also known as trephination. It is performed by a physician or surgeon to relieve the pain associated with a sub-ungual hematoma (blood under the nail); a small amount of blood is expressed through the hole and the pain associated with the pressure is partially alleviated.

Some people do this voluntarily!

In a chapter of his book, Eccentric Lives & Peculiar Notions, John Michell describes a British group that advocates self-trepanation to allow the brain access to more space and oxygen. The chapter is called "The People With Holes in their Heads". Michell cites Bart Huges as pioneered the idea of trepanation specifically his 1962 monograph, Homo Sapiens Correctus, as most cited by advocates of self-trepanation. Among other arguments, he contends that children have a higher state of consciousness and since children's skulls are not fully closed one can return to an earlier, childlike state of consciousness by self-trepanation. Further, by allowing the brain to freely pulsate Huges argues that a number of benefits will accrue.

Michell quotes a book called Bore Hole written by Joey Mellen. At the time the passage below was written, Joey and his partner, Amanda Feilding, had made two previous attempts at trepanning Mellen. The second attempt ended up placing Mellen in the hospital, where he was reprimanded severely and sent for psychiatric evaluation. After he returned home, Mellen decided to try again. He describes his third attempt at self-trepanation:

After some time there was an ominous sounding schlurp and the sound of bubbling. I drew the trepan out and the gurgling continued. It sounded like air bubbles running under the skull as they were pressed out. I looked at the trepan and there was a bit of bone in it. At last!

Amanda Feilding also performed a self-trepanation with a drill, while her partner Joey Mellen filmed the operation, in the film titled Heartbeat in the Brain. The film has since been lost. Portions of the film can be seen, however, in the documentary A Hole in the Head.

A hole in the head indeed.