trephination
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GC: n

S: NCBI – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876527/ (last access: 15 April 2018); SD – https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/trepanning (last access: 15 April 2018.

N: 1. From trephine +‎ –ation.
2. The surgical procedure in which a hole is drilled in the skull and a circular piece of bone removed.
3. The operation of trephining.
4. For a large part of human prehistory, people around the world practised trepanation: a crude surgical procedure that involves forming a hole in the skull of a living person by either drilling, cutting or scraping away layers of bone with a sharp implement.
To date, thousands of skulls bearing signs of trepanation have been unearthed at archaeological sites across the world.
But despite its apparent importance, scientists are still not completely agreed on why our ancestors performed trepanation.
Anthropological accounts of 20th-Century trepanations in Africa and Polynesia suggest that, in these cases at least, trepanation was performed to treat pain – for instance, the pain caused by skull trauma or neurological disease.
Trepanation may also have had a similar purpose in prehistory. Many trepanned skulls show signs of cranial injuries or neurological diseases, often in the same region of the skull where the trepanation hole was made.
5. Cultural Interrelation: We could mention the novels written by Patrick O’Brian.

  • Master and Commander, page 138
  • HMS Surprise, pages 119, 298
  • The Mauritius Command, pages 296, 297
  • The Far Side of the World, pages 194, 313, 325
  • The Hundred Days, pages 16, 64.

S: 1 & 2. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trephination (last access: 15 April 2018). 3. TERMIUM PLUS – https://bit.ly/2HFB4JK (last access: 15 April 2018). 4. BBC – http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160826-why-our-ancestors-drilled-holes-in-each-others-skulls (last access: 15 April 2018). 5. http://wiki.hmssurprise.org/phase3/index.php/Lexicon:Trepan,_trephine,_trepanning,_trephining (last access: 15 April 2018).

SYN: trepanation

S: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trephination (last access: 15 April 2018); TERMIUM PLUS – https://bit.ly/2HFB4JK (last access: 15 April 2018).

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