[Charles Henrickson]

". . . the shaman priests, who also worked as doctors in those times, probably performed a primitive version of life-saving craniotomy,"

Chinese friar drill.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Ugh. Looks like you killed the thread with that one...

[HiTech RedNeck]

It beggars the imagination how anyone who wasn't unconscious already could have withstood such a thing. The pain would have caused death from shock.