gms | German Medical Science

67. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC)
Joint Meeting mit der Koreanischen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (KNS)

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC) e. V.

12. - 15. Juni 2016, Frankfurt am Main

Surviving scalping injury in the American Indian Wars – A historical case series

Meeting Abstract

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  • Friedrich Mrosk - Universitätsklinik für Neurochirurgie, Medizinischen Universität Innsbruck, Austria
  • Claudius Thomé - Universitätsklinik für Neurochirurgie, Medizinischen Universität Innsbruck, Austria
  • Martin Ortler - Universitätsklinik für Neurochirurgie, Medizinischen Universität Innsbruck, Austria

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 67. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC), 1. Joint Meeting mit der Koreanischen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (KNS). Frankfurt am Main, 12.-15.06.2016. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2016. DocP 061

doi: 10.3205/16dgnc436, urn:nbn:de:0183-16dgnc4360

Veröffentlicht: 8. Juni 2016

© 2016 Mrosk et al.
Dieser Artikel ist ein Open-Access-Artikel und steht unter den Lizenzbedingungen der Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (Namensnennung). Lizenz-Angaben siehe http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Gliederung

Text

Objective: Scalping as a body-trophy-taking behavior has an extensive background in history all over the world. First evidence of scalping in North America appeared in 1520 and continued after that trough the American history. Although the exact number of scalping victims during the American Indian Wars is not known and surviving is rarely reported, there are several cases of scalping survivors. Our goal was to summarize these cases and to analyze the historical wound treatment in cases of extensive calvarial soft-tissue loss.

Method: References for this review were identified through a PubMed and Google search using Boolean operators and the search terms (“scalp”) AND (“surviving”). Further references were obtained from the resources of the papers identified through both searches. Non-medical sources, such as publications from historians or lay press articles were included to ensure an extended point of view. We eliminated duplicate reporting of cases. We extracted the year the scalping took place, demographic data, treatment modality, recovery time and duration of survival.

Results: Twenty-nine individuals surviving scalping injury were identified. All incidents took place between 1673 and 1910. In the majority of cases, age at injury was not documented. At least three cases were toddlers or juveniles. The extend of injury can be inferred only in those individuals depicted in historical illustrations or photographs (n=3). N=6 were treated with a conservative therapy using ointments no further specified, n=7 were treated by removing the outer table of the skull to promote tissue granulation. In fifteen cases the treatment is unknown. Survival was “many years” in n=10, between 9-67 years in n=4 and is unknown in the remaining cases.

Conclusions: Surviving scalping injuries during the American Indian Wars was possible despite the lack of antibiotics, tetanus immunization, blood replacement therapy and tissue transfer techniques. The technique to perforate the outer table to promote tissue granulation was first described by the French surgeon Augustin Belloste in 1696 and became popular in North America probably due to the work of Patrick Vance. The essential elements of the technique, modernized by the use of high power drills and augmented by split-skin grafting to provide early epithelial coverage may still prove useful today in special situations dealing with denuded cranial bone.