While we're being gruesome, here's another good one...trephining. Back in prehistoric times, when a man was suffering from something, like a bad headache, they would basically chisel into the head removing bone to let "the evil spirits" out. I remember when I was a psychology major, my professor went over this and brought in an example skull....that had been trephined in several different places. Ouch! It ranks right up there with mummification preparations....at least you're dead when that happens. Anyway, here's a BBC article on trephining if anyone's curious.