Did ancient civilizations really perform surgery?
Prehistoric skulls show successful brain surgery - with stone tools.
The answer
Trepanation - drilling or scraping a hole in the skull - is the oldest known surgical procedure, with evidence dating back to 7,000 BCE. Remarkably, many patients survived, as shown by healed bone growth around the holes. Ancient Egyptian physicians performed cataract surgery, set broken bones with splints, and used honey as an antiseptic. The Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE) describes 48 surgical cases with clinical observations that wouldn't look out of place in a modern medical textbook.
Source: National Library of Medicine
- medicine
- surgery
- ancient world
More from History & Civilization
- Who built the first known computer, and when?
- What were the Egyptian pyramids really built for, and who built them?
- How much knowledge was lost when the Library of Alexandria was destroyed?
- How did Genghis Khan shape the genetics of an entire continent?
- When did humans start cooking food, and how did it change us?
- What was the deadliest pandemic in human history?