Preconquest Peruvian Neurosurgeons: A Study of Inca and Pre-Columbian Trephination and the Art of Medicine in Ancient Peru
2001; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 49; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1227/00006123-200108000-00044
ISSN1524-4040
Autores Tópico(s)Neurology and Historical Studies
ResumoTo the Editor: I want to thank Neurosurgery for publishing so many humanistic and historical articles related to neurosurgery, such as the one by Marino and Gonzales-Portillo (2) on the practice of neurosurgery by the Incas of ancient Peru; I consider this article an important contribution to the history of the specialty. However, I regret the position of one of the commentators, Dr. Paulo A. de Mello (1), who, like Professor Marino, is a Brazilian neurosurgeon. He criticized the emotional involvement of the authors with the "Spanish conquerors," and he questioned the testing of the ancient surgical instruments of the Incas in operations on living persons performed by modern Peruvian neurosurgeons. To practice neurosurgery with ancient Egyptian or Inca instruments to save the life of a patient is not an unethical experiment, as Dr. de Mello suggests. On the contrary, it enlarges the scope of neurosurgery, considering that, centuries ago, our predecessors performed operations with better results than those produced during the Middle Ages and in some poorly developed centers in the world today. We should respect what these ancient peoples achieved in the art and science of our specialty, and in medicine in general. The surgical procedures were performed with love and respect for the patient by men who contributed to the general interest of the specialty. Unfortunately, the impact of the genocidal conqueror Pizarro, who began the extinction of the Incan civilization, seems to be forgotten in the minds and hearts of many men of science and physicians, including neurosurgeons, mainly those who place themselves above all ethics (the ethos of Avicenna, AD 900). The glory of Viracocha, the first "Inkha," the son of the Sun, who brought to Peru (AD 800) medical instruments and knowledge, probably emanated from the physician and high priest Imhoteep (2365 BC) from ancient Egypt, whose instruments, similar to ours, were found in Karnak for all of us to witness. "Ethics is limited only by the horizons of the Gods," as Mayta Capac, from the Inca Dynasty, would have said in AD 1200 in favor of all men, thus respecting the code of life in all epochs and habitats. Antonio de Pádua Bertelli
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