How in ancient times did people get rid of diseases for which advanced technologies are used today? Many believe that ancient people died from these diseases, or suffered from severe discomfort.
But there is evidence that in ancient times people already had significant knowledge of human anatomy and were even able to perform complex procedures such as brain surgery.
2,500 years ago in the West, the most developed countries were Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia.
In 1995, a 2,600-year-old mummy was found in Egypt with a surgical pin in its knee. The pin, the glue for fixing it, and the procedure itself were primitive, but similar in technique to those used today. The design of the pin is modern and in line with modern biomechanical principles, according to the journal of Brigham Young University.
Examples of brain surgery in the Incas, 15th century
When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79, it destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Under volcanic ash, the cities have been preserved almost in their original form, so they are easy to study. Among the numerous artifacts were found surgical instruments, including clamps, bone elevators, scalpels, catheters, cauterization devices, scissors, and gynecological instruments.
In northern India between 600 and 1000 BC there lived a surgeon Sushruta who performed plastic surgery. He was probably the world's first plastic surgeon. He had many students who had to study for six years before being allowed to practice medicine.
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Before the beginning of the training, the students of Sushruta took a solemn oath, similar to the Hippocratic oath, which appeared later. During the training, Sushruta's students performed operations on watermelons, pumpkins and cucumbers, according to the article "Sushruta: The First Plastic Surgeon in the World", published in the Internet Journal of Plastic Surgery.
Although the high achievements in medicine in these ancient countries are amazing, the operations performed by surgeons in ancient Siberia are even more amazing. In 2012, Russian scientists in the Altai Mountains discovered three skulls, which show traces of trepanation - an operation in which a hole is drilled in the skull.
Trepanation has its roots in the Stone Age, reports WebMD. When examining skulls from ancient Siberia, it turned out that the trepanation performed on them resembles the technique described in the Hippocratic Corpus, a series of medical tracts of the Hippocrates 500 BC.
One of the Siberian skulls with traces of trepanation
It is unclear whether the Siberian surgeons had any connection with Ancient Greece, thousands of kilometers away, but their operations were exactly the same as the Hippocratic Corpus..
Russian scientists from the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, amazed by the discovery, decided to carry out a similar operation using tools from the Bronze Age, using modern knowledge to understand how doctors could perform such operations 2,500 years ago.
“To be honest, I'm amazed,” said Alexei Krivoshapkin, a renowned neurosurgeon from Novosibirsk. “Now we know that in the era of Hippocrates, the inhabitants of Altai knew how to make accurate diagnoses and carry out complex trepanations and fantastic brain surgeries.”
Krivoshapkin said that ancient doctors performed trepanation in such an area of the skull, where it reduced damage and increased the chances of survival. In addition, one of the men who underwent the operation, in all likelihood, lived for many years after the operation, therefore, signs of bone growth are visible in his skull long after the operation.
Of the three skulls found, two belonged to men and one to a woman. They lived in Siberia 2300-2500 years ago and were representatives of the Pazyryk culture. One of the men most likely suffered a head injury. He developed a blood clot (hematoma), which could cause terrible headaches, nausea, and poor coordination. Scientists concluded that trepanation was performed to remove the hematoma.
There is no trace of trauma on the other male skull. Scientists determined that he suffered from a congenital deformity of the skull.
Ancient doctors performed trepanation for both men in two stages. First, they scraped off the top layer of the skull. Then they made a small hole to gain access to the brain. It is unclear if they used anesthesia.
According to the researchers, both operations were carried out very carefully and with great precision. Krivoshapkin repeated this operation using a copy of a Bronze Age knife designed by Andrei Borodinsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences. The operation took 28 minutes.
However, ancient trepanations were not always successful. The woman's skull suggests that the doctors she visited took the wrong approach. The surgeon used crude technique and performed the operation near the blood vessels in the brain.
The woman was about 30 years old. Judging by her skull, she had an injury from a fall from a great height. Russian scientists have concluded that she died during the operation or shortly after.
The Pazyryk people did not leave behind written sources, so it is very difficult to determine the technique and history of the development of their medicine.