History of a Lobotomy

Lobotomy- surgical interruption of one or more nerve tracts in the frontal lobe of the brain: used in the treatment of intractable mental disorders.  (thefreedictionary.com)

Today, when people hear the term lobotomy, they picture someone lying on a medical table with an ice pick being shoved into their brain above the eye. But what would happen if you were asked to picture a leucotomy? Would you even know what that word meant? The leucotomy is the predecessor of the lobotomy. Developed in 1935 by Antonio Egas Moniz, the leucotomy was thought to help with mental illness’ like schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Moniz had a theory that mental illnesses like the ones listed above, were due to a sickness in nerve cells. This led Moniz to performing the first leucotomy in 1935, where he would drill holes into his patients head, then inject ethyl alcohol into the frontal lobe to damage nerves. After seven patients, Moniz reframed from using the alcohol injections, and starting using a wire to just sever the nerve connections. In 1936, Moniz published his findings, with a very strong bias that patients had improved. However, his published findings were only on the first few days after the surgery.

Moniz’s published findings, had become well known, especially amongst other neurologist. One important person, was a U.S. neurology professor named Walter Freeman. This was the man who took the name leucotomy and renamed it lobotomy. Within a year after reading Moniz’s findings, Freeman had already performed 20 lobotomies. He decided he wanted to find a more efficient way of performing the surgery. He wanted the efficient way to eliminate the need of drilling into the patients head. This was where the “ice pick” method was developed. The whole procedure only took about 10 minutes. A patient would go through electroshock therapy to make them unconscious for a short period of time, Freeman would take an ice pick like instrument and insert it above the eye, it was then tapped with a hammer into the frontal lobe, he would wiggle it around severing nerve connections, and lastly, he would pull the instrument out and give the patients dark glasses to hide their bruised eyes. Freeman himself was known for performing about 2,500 lobotomies. But that all ended in 1967, when he performed his last lobotomy, before being banned from performing surgery. Lobotomies later on became a practice less used, when antipsychotics and other medications were developed, to help treat the distress of the mentally ill.

(Howard Dully, 12 years old, mid way through his lobotomy)

 

 

 

(Howard Dully, after lobotomy, exhibiting classic bruised eyes)

 

 

 

 Here are a couple of links, one to the top 10 most notable and fascinating lobotomies, and the other to a video on youtube about Walter Freeman.

Top 10 Most Notable Lobotomies   http://listverse.com/2009/06/24/top-10-fascinating-and-notable-lobotomies/

PBS documentary of Walter Freeman   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aNILW6ILk