Drilling holes in the skull was never a migraine cure – here’s why it was long thought to be
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Katherine Foxhall, University of Leicester
Trepanation – the technique of removing bone from the skull by scraping, sawing, drilling or chiselling – has long fascinated those interested in the darker side of medical history. One stock tale is that trepanning is one of the most ancient treatments for migraines. As I study the history of the migraine, it certainly has always caught my attention.
The word trepanation comes from the Greek trypanon, meaning a borer. The earliest known trepanned...
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