Plural of encephalotomy; multiple surgical procedures in which the brain is cut or incised.
From encephalotomy (surgical incision of the brain) plus the plural suffix -ies. This term comes from Greek enkephalos + -tomy (cutting), forming the plural of a specialized surgical procedure.
The existence of this plural form shows that brain surgery, as risky as it sounds, was performed frequently enough in the 1800s that doctors needed a word for doing it multiple times—a reminder that surgeons have always pushed boundaries to help patients.
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