'Psychosurgery' in Renaissance art

Hieronymus Bosch and other early Renaissance artists depicted 'stone operat ions' In which stones were supposedly surgically removed from the head as a treatment for mental illness. These works have usually been interpreted ei ther as portraying a contemporary practice of medical charlatans or as an a llegory of human folly, rather than a real event. As trepanation for head i njury and mental disease was actually carried out in Europe at this time, a nother interpretation of these works is that they are derived from a common medical practice of the day.