Old Surgical Instruments Of Aures

Source : surgical instruments

"Anthropologists in the early twentieth century reported that trepanation was still occurring in a number of places, notably Algeria, elsewhere in Africa, Bolivia, Peru, and Oceania. Although it is a relatively difficult and delicate procedure, survival rates reported by anthropologists, and skulls from archaeological contexts showing post-operative healing, suggest an impressive rate of success. The trepanation tools pictured below were collected in the Aurès (east Atlas) Mountains in Algeria. They were donated to the Museum in 1913. With the tools (in a small box at the bottom of the picture) there are also small pieces of bone taken from a man’s skull during a trepanation operation."

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Please note the sources of the Article:

HILTON SIMPSON, MELVILLE, ‘Some Arab and Shawia Remedies and Notes on the Trepanning of the Skull in Algeria’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol 43 (1913), pp. 706–721.

KIRKUP, JOHN, ‘Shawiya Berber Surgical Instruments in the Aures Mountains, 1913-1922’, Congress Proceedings of the International Society for History of Medicine (1998).

For other works by HILTON SIMPSON,check out this