History of Lobotomy
The idea of brain surgery used to improve mental health began around 1890. Friederich Golz, a German researcher, removed parts of his dog's temporal lobes, and found them to be less aggressive than prior to the surgery. This was almost immediately followed by Gottlieb Burkhardt, the head of a Swiss mental institution. Burkhardt attempted similar surgeries on six of his schizophrenic patients. His results were not as positive. Some patients were indeed calmer, two died.
In 1935, Carlye Jacobsen of Yale University liked the brain surgery idea, but modified it from what Golz and Burkhardt already tried. Jacobsen preformed frontal and prefrontal lobotomies on chimps. He found the chimps to be calmer after the surgery.
However, the first person to really put lobotomy on the map was Antonio Egas Moniz of the University of Libson Medical School. Moniz pinpointed the problem that had occurred in the previous three scientist's work. He found that cutting the nerves that run from the frontal cortex to the thalamus "short-circuited" the problem. Moniz, along with his colleague Almedia Lima, devised a new technique. This new technique involved drilling two small holes on either side of the forehead, inserting a special surgical knife, and severing the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain. Moniz called this surgical process "leucotomy," but it would latter be known as "lobotomy." Due to some of his patience improving, but some not improving, Moniz cautioned use with lobotomy. He felt it should only be used in cases where everything else had been tried. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on lobotomy in 1949.
In 1935, Carlye Jacobsen of Yale University liked the brain surgery idea, but modified it from what Golz and Burkhardt already tried. Jacobsen preformed frontal and prefrontal lobotomies on chimps. He found the chimps to be calmer after the surgery.
However, the first person to really put lobotomy on the map was Antonio Egas Moniz of the University of Libson Medical School. Moniz pinpointed the problem that had occurred in the previous three scientist's work. He found that cutting the nerves that run from the frontal cortex to the thalamus "short-circuited" the problem. Moniz, along with his colleague Almedia Lima, devised a new technique. This new technique involved drilling two small holes on either side of the forehead, inserting a special surgical knife, and severing the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain. Moniz called this surgical process "leucotomy," but it would latter be known as "lobotomy." Due to some of his patience improving, but some not improving, Moniz cautioned use with lobotomy. He felt it should only be used in cases where everything else had been tried. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on lobotomy in 1949.
Antonio Egas Moniz preforming leucotomy on a patient.
Lobotomy in America
In 1936, psychiatrist Walter Freeman and his colleague James Watts began operating on American patients (Freeman named it "lobotomy"). Unlike Moniz, Freeman believed lobotomy was a miracle cure. He recommended the procedure for everything from psychosis to depression to neurosis to criminality. Freeman thought that lobotomies should
be used as a way to control people, to silence political dissents, and
experiment on people who were incarcerated in prison. He thought lobotomies
could also be used on mental patients who had no say in the handling of their
own lives. As well as on people who were different and did not conform to the
standards of the day and to be used mercilessly to control behavior in
children.
Freeman became impatient with the difficult and drawn out surgical methods introduced by Moniz, so he generated yet another lobotomy procedure. In 1946, he created an instrument known as an "ice pick." This ice pick would be inserted above the patient's eyeball through the orbit of the eye and driven through the thin bone with a light tap of a mallet. Freeman then moved the ice pick from side to side to destroy prefontal brain tissue. This process only took a few minutes.
Freeman became impatient with the difficult and drawn out surgical methods introduced by Moniz, so he generated yet another lobotomy procedure. In 1946, he created an instrument known as an "ice pick." This ice pick would be inserted above the patient's eyeball through the orbit of the eye and driven through the thin bone with a light tap of a mallet. Freeman then moved the ice pick from side to side to destroy prefontal brain tissue. This process only took a few minutes.
