"Trepanation had been abandoned by most cultures by the end of the Middle Ages, but the practice was still being carried out in a few isolated parts of Africa a

"Trepanation had been abandoned by most cultures by the end of the Middle Ages, but the practice was still being carried out in a few isolated parts of Africa and Polynesia until the early 1900s." Not exactly. As far as I know the latest known trepanations in East Africa (other than those in a modern medical context of course, with electronic tools) have been carried out in the middle of the 20th century. I can't find the paper anymore so take this with a grain of salt, but if I remember correctly the reports seemed to imply that the practice was merely driven underground by the laws forbidding it, not stopped. There is a possibility that successful trepanations are still being carried out with simple stone tools today. One paper by an anthropologist described the process as rather relaxing by the way, once the initial pain of cutting the skin and ripping it apart wears off. The grinding of the stone against the skull supposedly induced a kind of trance in many who experienced it.