Title: Re: African Headache Treatment
Post by Hoppy on Dec 4th, 2013 at 2:50am
Hi Gregg,
It would seem they have come a long way since these days.
Headaches are bothersome things, people have been annoyed
by them for a long time, seven thousand years at least, and
probably longer. We are all quite willing, when afflicted with a
headache, to agree with the people of the old stone age that
a headache is a demon and we would be willing to do most
anything to get rid of it. The pain whether due to a blow on
the head, indigestion, nervousness or other causes certainly
reminds one of a demon and it is readily understood how
ancient man should have conceived the idea of releasing
this demon which was bothering him. He devised a remedy
which certainly was an effective cure for headache wether
the pain was due to eye strain, or brain tumor, skull fracture
or nervousness, although it must be admitted that his-cure
was worse than the pain. primitive man devised his curative
measures as a phase of his religious beliefs ,hence the cure
adopted for headaches was a religious rite. The operation
was performed by a Shaman or Medicine man in some remote
fastness of his region and have the patient remained until
completely recovered. This treatment consisted in opening the
skull in a variety of ways to relieve the pain, or as the stone
age men thought, to let out the demon. men in the stone age
phase of their culture whether in Peru, Mexico, France, Karylia
or the South Sea Islands practiced this method of relief and it
is said to be still employed in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia
and in northern Africa.This ancient surgical art, which forms
the very beginnings of prehistoric surgury, seems to have been
developed first in the region just north of Paris near the Seine
and Oise rivers some seven or eight thousand years ago,
in the Dolmens, or burial mounds, scientists have found the
ancient skull of people who had suffered headache and who
had their skulls trepanned or opened to release the headache
demon. No special class of individuals seems to have been
favored since the operation was performed on man,woman,
and child, apparently without respect to either age or sex.
It's frequency is attested by the great number of skulls
exhibiting the surgical openings. In one burial mound in France
yielding the bones of 120 individuals more than 40 showed
the effects of trepannation.
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