Do you believe that brain surgery was performed 1800 years ago?

Question

That's what they said on the news just now...Ya'll told me not to believe the news...so I'm coming here to find out the truth about it from the experts!! lol Can you imagine??? I'm sure they didn't have any sedatives then. OUCH!

Answer 1

Called trepanation.

Answer 2

yes a brain surgery was performed 1800 years ago .it was done in india by a doctor named CHARAKA.i do blieve in this.

Answer 3

That means that in 200 AD brain surgery was performed?  I don't know, it wouldn't have been very effective.  They definitely didn't have sedatives, I mean in the US Civil war sedatives were a bottle of whiskey...

Answer 4

yup i believe that!!!  i come from new zealand (an island in the south pacific) and there is evidence to show that my ancestors (maori) preformed a procedure resembling a myringotomy which we preform today (puncturing the ear drum to drain some of the 'liquid' in infected ears) by using a sharp stick...  many ancient civilisations were wise before their time and alot of their ways were lost in time

Answer 5

NO.

But it should have been, then we would have less stupid people.

Answer 6

it must be a slow news week, i just turned on the news and they were testing that super putty stuff they show in infomercials.

Yes, i have seen that stuff before. They were probably doing stuff more along the lines of making a hole so the crazy demons could escape, but yes, i believe they did that.

If I recall, they would only feel the pain of cutting the scalp because there is no pain sensory in the brain itself. I dont think it would be nearly as painful as breaking and setting a bone without anethesia.

I just watched the movie Awake, now that could be painful. I am told that people being awake during surgery is not about pain, since they use pain killers to numb the chest area, however, I understand you can still feel the pressure and stuff, so you know everything thats going on.

If you havent seen the movie its about a guy who has a heart transplant and the anethesia doesnt put him asleep and he is awake, but paralyzed through the proceedure.

And it turns out, this is not so uncommon as you might wish it to be.

Answer 7

I don't think it was really "brain surgery".  They cut a hole in the skull but I don't thing they touch the brain.  It can relieve the prusure casues by a head wound and aparently makes you feel high all the time.

Answer 8

I believe skulls have been found with a hole cut in them which has partially healed over. Proving only that people were able to live for some time after a hole was made in their skull for whatever reason, I don't think it necessarily implies brain surgery.

Answer 9

You think that hard to believe .... Read this artical :

Brain surgery is perhaps the oldest of the practiced medical arts. No hard evidence exists suggesting a beginning of other facets of medicine such as pharmacology - using drugs as well as natural ingredients to help a fellow human being. There is ample evidence, however, of brain surgery dating back to the Neolithic (late-Stone Age) period. The remains of successful brain operations, as well as surgical implements, were found in France, and the success rate was remarkable, even circa 7000 BC. But the evidence is not limited to Europe. Pre-Incan civilizations used brain surgery as an extensive practice as early as 2000 BC.

Brain surgery was also used for spiritual and magical reasons; often the pratice was limited to kings, priests, and nobility. Surgical tools were made of bronze and obsidian. Also, in Africa, there is evidence of brain surgery as early as 3000 BC. Ancient Egyptian civilizations contributed important notations on the nervous system.

The Greek, Hippocrates, was the father of modern medical ethics. Born on the Aegean island of Cosin in 470 BC, he was familiar with clinical signs of head injuries, fractures, spasms, and depressions. His texts were still in good shape two thousand years after his death in 360 BC. Ancient Rome also had a brain surgeon star. In the first century AD, Aulus Cornelius Celsus operated on depressed skull fractures and described symptoms of brain injury in detail.

Asia had many talented brain surgeons: Galenus of Pergamon, born in Turkey, and physicians of Byzantium, who worked from AD 800 to AD 1200. There was an Islamic School of Brain Surgery, and one of its students was Abu Bekr Muhammed El Razi, who lived from AD 852 to AD 932, became one of the greatest Islamic brain surgeons.

Another great one, Abu Iqluasim Khalaf, was a great influence on Western brain surgery. The Christian brain surgeons of the Middle Ages were clerics, educated and familiar with medical literature as well as brain surgery.

I think that brain surgery changed history because it lets doctors help people with brain diseases and injuries lead normal lives and even saves some people from death. It also helps people learn more about the brain and how it works.

http://faculty.miis.edu/~bcole/cbi_05_pr...

You ask about pain killers ..... How this :

Poppy & OpiumTimeline

by Erowid

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3400 BCE  Opium poppy cultivated in lower Mesopotamia...called Hul Gil, or "joy plant" by the Sumerians. 1    

1300 BCE  Egyptians cultivate opium poppies during the reign of Thutmose IV, Akhenaton and King Tutankhamen. They reportedly trade the item across the Mediterranean into Greece and Europe. 1    

1100 BCE  On the island of Cyprus, the "Peoples of the Sea" craft surgical-quality culling knives to harvest opium, which they would cultivate, trade and smoke before the fall of Troy. 1    

330 BCE  Alexander the Great introduces opium to the people of Persia and India.    

300 BCE  Opium used by Arabs, Greeks, and Romans as a sedative and soporific. 2    

160-180  Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, habitually took opium to sleep and to cope with the difficulty of military campaigns. 3    

400  Opium thebaicum, from the Egytpian fields at Thebes, is first introduced to China by Arab traders.    [Details]

c. 1000  India. Opium is cultivated, eaten, and drunk by all classes as a household remedy; it is used by rulers as an indulgence, and given to soldiers to increase their courage. 4    

c. 1000  China. The medicinal use of opium poppy seeds is widespread. By 1100, the more potent capsule is in use, but pure opium is not extracted from the capsule. 4

  http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/opiates/...  

Absinthe

The precise origin of absinthe is unclear. The medical use of wormwood dates back to ancient Egypt and is mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, circa 1550 BC. Wormwood extracts and wine-soaked wormwood leaves were used as remedies by the ancient Greeks.[15]. Moreover, there is evidence of the existence of a wormwood-flavored wine, absinthites oinos, in ancient Greece.[16]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinth

Hope This Helped ... Good Luck