Chronic ear disease as a possible reason for trephination

It is rare for any reason to be deduced for the operation of trephination. A Peruvian skull is presented with three trephine holes on one side and evidence of the chronic ear infection known as cholesteatoma on the other. This infection would have produced a facial paralysis on the same side. It is suggested that there would have been an awareness of the connection between the motor area of the brain on one side and the movement of the opposite side of the body, and that a trephination might have been carried out in an attempt to relieve a supposed brain lesion, albeit on the wrong side.