The Chyrurgeons store-house furnished with forty-three tables cut in brass, in which are all sorts of instruments ... useful to the performance of all manual operations ... together with a hundred choise observations of famous cures performed : with three indexes 1. of the instruments, 2. of cures performed, and 3. of things remarkable / written by Johannes Scultetus ; and faithfully Englished by E.B.

OBSERVATION XXXVII. Of a Depression of the Skull of a Woman with a Fissure.

IN the general cure of Contusions of the Head, I formerly took no∣tice, that the Skull of those who were grown up, is seldome De∣pressed without a Fissure, either in the inward, or outward Table, unless in those, whose Skulls are naturally softer than ordinary. This is confirmed by this Observation of a Serving-Maid of Michael Riet∣mans, who in the thirtieth year of her age, carrying a Vessel of Wa∣ter upon her head, fell down, and hurt the right side of the fore-part of her head: which being much swelled, Nicholas Reutte was sent for, who applyed a Lamb-skin warm to the part: the next day the Skin being taken off, perceiving a hollowness, I declared to the standers by, that there was a Depression of the Skull, and the necessity of dividing the Skin; which being granted, I cut the skin with an Incision-Knife, into the form of a Cross, and presently perceived a small Depression on the outward Table of the Skull, without any Fissure. The Wound being bound up, I was very doubtful whether the inward Table was intire, because the fall was from a high place; and therefore I proposed the use of the Trepan, but the Patient would not admit of it, declaring then, that this Wound or Depressi∣on, if there were a Fissure in the inward Table, could not well be healed, without Perforating the Skull; but if that were intire, the Patient might with less danger be Cured. I kept the Wound open 12 days, and not any one Symptom happening, which did argue either the Fissure of the Skull, or any other hurt of the Brain, I healed it up.