BRAIN SURGERY was being carried out in Ireland more than 1,000 years ago – and patients survived.
People with disabilities were treated with compassion and respect within their communities in medieval Ireland but TB and other diseases, possibly including cancer, claimed many lives while others died by the sword.
A multitude of insights about life and death in Gaelic Ireland were gleaned following the discovery of an unknown medieval church and the graves of about 1,300 men, women and children who lived along the banks of the river Erne at Ballyhanna, Co Donegal, several hundred years ago.
The burial ground, which spanned several centuries, was found during the construction of the Ballyshannon/ Bundoran bypass in 2003. Last night, as part of Science Week Ireland, a team of archaeologists and scientists from Sligo Institute of Technology and Queen’s University Belfast, who are involved in the Ballyhanna project, outlined their findings to date.
Dr Jeremy Bird, head of the school of science at Sligo IT, who introduced the lecture The Science of a Cemetery, explained that one of the most exciting aspects of the project is an investigation into whether cystic fibrosis was present in the population 1,000 years ago.
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Ah. The Cystic Fibrosis thing is particularly interesting. It is – or was, I’m going to have to do my homework now – generally accepted that our hugely disproportionate rate of CF was a result of the Famine. Interesting.
That’s amazing! It’s an incredibly informative post and it makes me rather proud to be Irish as well. As if the Irish need more reason to be proud LoL. =D xox
My brother has CF and I will keep my eye on this. Just watched the pilot of Bones, it was fab. Must be a real thril gathering information that way particularly on such a large scale.
That’s pretty interesting since I’m from donegal, I always knew we were well ahead of our time up there!
Livin through brain surgery (if that was what it is) still does not meany anything ofcourse, especially not to the patient.
i can imagen that it is interesting to find such a church when you don’t expect it. Which is kinda weird though (unexpected).. if people have been burried there till 16 century ..
I myself think all present diseases were there back then as well already. As long as humans were there.
The best thing about this article is I’m driving distance from everywhere that’s named =D
interesting on how surgery was possible back then
Theres evidence of dental surgery being performed routinely over 5000 years ago, with the oldest recorded ‘dental surgeon’ being from egypt.
Lots of Egyptian surgery, including nose jobs for beauty. I wonder how much the dentist extracted from patients’ wallets 1000 years ago?