According to a paper published in the Lancet for January 22, evidence of cranial trepanations on children in antiquity is extremely rare. In 1995 the skeleton of a hydrocephalic child aged five to six years was excavated from a cemetery attached to a villa in suburban Rome and dated to the end of the first or start of the second century AD. The skull showed a trepanation incision probably made by a blunt-edged chisel-type instrument. The endocranial surface adjoining the hole was pitted and eroded, indicating an osteolytic inflammatory reaction. The evidence suggests that the operation was performed while the child was alive, and that survival for a few weeks occurred.
The findings showed that the child suffered a supratentorial growth which progressed slowly - whether traumatic, infectious or neoplastic does not appear - and that an operation intended to alleviate the symptoms of the lesion was undertaken. Since the child was buried among graves of commoners of a rural community, it is thought that, despite its modest origins, it was accorded a costly and expert treatment, probably by an experienced surgeon in Rome. As the authors of the paper write, "the skeletal remains of this child carry across the centuries a message of compassion and of a firm resolve to fight against the impending fate of an unyielding disease."