trepan

Marshal Ney had a silver trepan in his skull, a bullet wound in his ankle.

From Time Magazine Archive

Fearful things: bonesaws, abdomen retractor, trocar and trepan.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

Now, the trepan is the only way to effect it; and I'll be frank with you: Doctor Pell has been with him half a dozen times, and he says the operation would be instantaneously fatal.

From The House by the Church-Yard by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

But, though Pell pronounced that he must die without recovering consciousness, and that the trepan would kill him instantaneously, I had a profound misgiving that he might recover speech and recollection.

From The House by the Church-Yard by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

"I don't know what they would say in some of the swagger hospitals, if they were asked to trepan a man's skull under these conditions," he said as the operation was finished.

From The Rider of Waroona by G. Firth Scott

She fetches down a skull from her mantelpiece and shows me its several trepanned holes.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 10, 2019

But not all trepanned skulls show signs of head injuries, so it’s possible the surgery was also used to treat conditions that left no skeletal trace, such as chronic headaches or mental illnesses.

From Science Magazine ● Jun. 8, 2018

Thousands of years ago, surgeons trepanned patients in early Europe and the South Pacific, and trepanation was still being practiced in East Africa as recently as the 1990s.

From National Geographic

This plaster cast of the skull measures 24 inches around the base and shows evidence of having been scarred by bullets and swords, and possibly trepanned.

From Time Magazine Archive

“You’re looking at the trepanned skulls?” he said.

From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman

Beside trepanning, the more radical surgeries included mastectomy, amputation, hernia reduction and cataract couching.

From New York Times ● Jun. 13, 2023

Most unusual were a bone lever, for putting fractures back in place, and the handle of what appears to have been a drill, for trepanning the skull and extracting impacted weaponry from bone.

From New York Times ● Jun. 13, 2023

Come for the trepanning, stay for Judy Davis’s performance as Ratched’s bitter rival, Nurse Bucket.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 9, 2020

Verano spoke with National Geographic about his views on the art and science of trepanning, based on decades of study and more than 800 trepanned skulls.

From National Geographic

This process, it said in spidery writing on a card, was called trepanning.

From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman