The long continuance of such a practice is a very interesting fact, and we may mention a yet more curious one. How are we to explain trepanations that had no apparent motive on crania showing no symptoms of disease? How account for the repetition at different tunes of this operation, first on the living subject and then on the corpse, as at St. Affrique, Bougon (Fig. 82), at Feigneux (Oise), where Dr. Topinard has recently made excavations in a Neolithic cave and reports that a dolichocephalic skull of the same type as the crania of the cave of _L’Homme Mort_, belonging to a man of about thirty years of age, bore two perforations, one made during life, the other after death? The first measured two and a third by two and a half inches, and was surrounded by scratches, showing how clumsy the operator had been.32 [Illustration: 82.] Skull from the Bougon dolmen (Deux-Sèvres), seen in profile. In nearly every case the subjects operated on were young, and long survived the operation. The knowledge of this fact was from the first a very useful guide in the study of the subject of trepanation, and eagerly pursued researches constantly confirm it. One skull, for instance, from the cave of _L’Homme Mort_ (Fig. 83), had a large opening produced partly by an old operation and partly by two posthumous trepanations. The subject had been trepanned in childhood or early youth. There could be no doubt on that point; cicatrization had been complete, the bony tissue having returned to its original condition. Then after death, at an adult age, the relations or friends of the deceased had cut out further round portions of the skull as near as possible to the old wound, probably with a view to keeping these pieces as amulets. [Illustration: 83.] Trepanned prehistoric skull. This was to Broca a flash of illuminating light, and according to him was in some cases a religious rite, a ceremony of initiation, perhaps even a custom inculcated by an established religion. The child who had been subjected to it and had survived—as probably most of the victims did survive,—attained to a certain position and celebrity in his life, and after his death the fragments of his skull, especially those portions near the old wound, became treasured relics, and were in the end buried with their fortunate possessor on his death. This superstition appears to have long survived even in historic times, and a Gallic chain is quoted33 on which hung a round piece of skull with three holes in it. In. deed, these ornaments were so much sought after that counterfeits of them were made; at least, we cannot in any other way account for the occurrence of objects exactly resembling round pieces of human crania, but in reality made out of pieces of a stag’s antler found in the Baumes-Chaudes Cave.