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Trepanation Guide

Monday, May 8, 2006 Update by Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons

Trepanation Guide, submitted by Shmorky. I hope you like sticking things in your brain!

Trepanation is the practice of making a hole in the skull in order to improve the brain pulsations and hence the overall well being.

I know I'm all the time complaining about my darn brain pulsations being down in the dumps. If only there were a way to conduct this miracle brain pulsation improving procedure in the comfort of my own home!

Anyway, the trepan goes into your skull and a chunk of bone is extracted. You bandage yourself up and eventually the skin heals over, leaving only a small indentation to show for the hole in your head. The idea is to pump up your brainbloodvolume.

Hmm, I don't know, drilling into my skull sounds awfully invasive. Maybe I should know what the doctors are saying about this miracle cure.

Doctors, today, have been taught that trepanation was done in past centuries for superstitious, magical or religious reasons. They generally look on trepanation as a practice akin to blood letting. They scoff at it. They deny that trepanation could have a reasonable basis. They fear that to practice trepanation would demean their professional status. They have stated that they wouldn't undertake it if their lives depended on it.

Whoa, I would eat a live kitten if my own life depended on it, so this must be pretty bad. Maybe there's another side to this whole thing though. Maybe the doctor's aren't really all that with their "knowin' stuff" and "college attending."

However trepanation doesn't go away. It is ingrained in our history. The ancestors of modern Europeans, the Battle-Ax people, were prodigious trepanners as well as were all other ancient peoples.

Oh, well, heck, if the Battle-Ax people did it then it must be okay. Battle-Ax people - 1, Doctors - 0.

- Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons