Lobotomy

A human brain that has undergone lobotomy.

Close up of "ice picks"

A lobotomy (Greek: lobos: Lobe of brain, tomos: "cut/slice") is a form of psychosurgery, also known as a leukotomy (from Greek leukos: clear or white and tomos meaning "cut/slice"). It consists of cutting the connections to and from, or simply destroying, the prefrontal cortex. These procedures often result in major personality changes or even mental retardation. Lobotomies have been used in the past to treat a wide range of mental illnesses including schizophrenia, clinical depression, and various anxiety disorders. Since the development of such antipsychotic drugs as Thorazine in the 1950s, lobotomies and other forms of psychosurgery have become generally obsolete.

History

In 1890, Dr. Sarles^{[citation needed]} performed partial lobotomies on six patients of a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland. He drilled holes into their heads and extracted sections of their frontal lobes. One died after the operation, and another was found dead in a river 10 days after release (whether by accident, suicide, or crime is unknown), while the others exhibited altered behavior.

Human lobotomy was performed by the Portuguese physician and neurologist António Egas Moniz in 1936. His method involved drilling holes in patients' heads and destroying the tissue connecting the frontal lobes by injecting alcohol into them. Moniz won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1949 for this work. The procedure was refined by British psychiatrists including Eric Cunningham Dax, and brought to the United States by Drs. Walter Freeman and James W. Watts, who refined Moniz's procedures and changed the name from leukotomy to lobotomy.

Freeman, without the support of Watts, later developed a version that reached frontal lobe tissue through the tear ducts. In his trans-orbital lobotomy, a mallet is used to pound and force a surgical instrument akin to an ice pick through the thin layer of skull at the top of the eye socket. The pick is then wiggled to damage the frontal lobe. This technique could be performed in a doctor's office rather than in an operating room, and required only a few minutes to perform. Freeman advocated this procedure for patients with even fairly mild symptoms. He personally performed the operation on thousands of people and promoted the idea of lobotomy as a casual procedure, claiming it would one day be as common as dental work.^[1]

Lobotomy had long been criticized by the medical profession, as many were repulsed at the idea of deliberately destroying healthy brain tissue. Several cases of lobotomies which significantly damaged the recipients' mental capacity were publicized and cemented the procedure's poor reputation. With the advent of Thorazine in the 1950s, the procedure began to seem barbarous, and its frequency rapidly declined. In 1950 lobotomy was banned in the Soviet Union.

In 1977, the U.S. Congress created a National Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research to investigate allegations that psychosurgery—including lobotomy techniques—were used to control minorities and restrain individual rights, and that it had unethical after-effects. It concluded that, in general, psychosurgery could have positive effects. However, concerns about lobotomy steadily grew, as numerous countries such as Germany and Japan, along with several U.S. states, prohibited it. Lobotomy was legally practiced in controlled and regulated U.S. centers and in Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Spain, India, Belgium and the Netherlands. The practice had generally ceased by the early 1970s, but some countries continued small-scale operations through the late 1980s. In France, 32 lobotomies were performed between 1980 and 1986 according to an IGAS report; about 15 each year in the UK, 70 in Belgium, and about 15 for the Massachusetts General Hospital of Boston.^[2]

Scale

Lobotomy was most prevalent in the United States, with approximately 40,000 persons lobotomized, followed by Great Britain with approximately 17,000 and the three Scandinavian countries with a combined figure of approximately 9,300.^[3]

Cases

Rosemary Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy, was given a lobotomy when her father complained to doctors about the 23-year-old’s moodiness and growing interest in men. The procedure was personally performed by Walter Freeman. Instead of producing the desired result, however, the lobotomy reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent and staring blankly at walls for hours. Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. To avoid political scandal, the nature of Rosemary's affliction was hidden by her father for years, described to the public as the result of mental retardation. Her sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded the Special Olympics in her honor in 1968.
Howard Dully had a lobotomy at 12, after his stepmother was simply tired of his "youthful defiance". In regards to the long term effects of the operation, at the age of 56 he said, "I've always felt different -- wondered if something's missing from my soul. I have no memory of the operation". Dully would later go on to uncover the story of his own lobotomy, which had not previously been revealed to him. Crown Publishers published Howard Dully's memoir (co-written by Charles Fleming), My Lobotomy[1], in September 2007.^[4]^[5]
New Zealand author and poet, Janet Frame was due to have a lobotomy because of perceived mental illness. She was only saved from this procedure after she received a literary award the day before her operation was due to take place.

In popular culture

Eddie the Head, the mascot for the British Heavy Metal band, Iron Maiden, appears to have undergone a lobotomy on the Piece of Mind album cover. Also on all of the other album covers following the 1983 release of the album, he is seen with the metal screws and headgear.
The lyrics at the end of the song "Brain Damage" by Pink Floyd refers to a lobotomy, which was probably why the song was titled so.
In the 1947 radio play "Dark Curtain", Veronica Lake portrays a paranoid schizophrenic bride-to-be who receives a failed series of convulsive electroshock treatments followed by a successful lobotomy. The shock treatments and the brain surgery are described in clinical detail. The glowingly positive light in which these "advances in modern medicine" are depicted makes this episode of "Exploring the Unknown" unintentionally creepy in the extreme.
In Tennessee Williams's play, Suddenly, Last Summer, Catherine, the protagonist, is threatened with a lobotomy to try and stop her telling the truth about her cousin Sebastian.
In the 1962 book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (and the 1975 film based on it), McMurphy is lobotomized after he attacks Nurse Ratched.
In the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, Taylor is separated from his fellow astronauts. He later finds that astronaut Landon has been lobotomized by the apes.
The 1982 biopic Frances includes a fictional scene of actress Frances Farmer undergoing transorbital lobotomy.
In the 2004 film Cube Zero, Eric Wynn is lobotomized after not listening to higher ranking personnel.
On The Office (Season 3) in "The Merger", Karen says that she is "at the grocery store finding a corkscrew so I can give myself a lobotomy" because she has had a rough day at work.
In The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror V Episode, Ned mentions "Now, in case all that smiling didn't cheer you up, there's one thing that never fails: a nice glass of warm milk, a little nap -- and a total frontal lobotomy." To which Moe replies, "It's not so bad, Homer. They...go in through your nose and...they let you keep the piece of brain they cut out."
In the episode "A Better World" of Justice League, Superman lobotomizes Doomsday to stop him.
In the episode "Unruhe" of The X-Files, Mulder and Scully investigate a series of abductions by a man who lobotomizes women and can project his fantasies in "thought photography".
The song "Existential Blues" by Tom "T-Bone" Stankus contains the line, "I'd rather have this bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
American Glam-Goth band Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 frequently mentioned lobotomies in their lyrics, as the project that evolved from these bands including, Wednesday 13 and Murderdolls.
The Ramones recorded the song "Teenage Lobotomy" which appeared on their 1977 LP Rocket to Russia.
The movie From Hell, Ann Crook is lobotomized to keep her quiet about her marriage to Prince Albert and the fact that she had a child with him.
Derek Edge had a lobotomy done back in 1988 because he was thinking about cocks way too often. He later then realized it was because he lived on a farm

References

^ El-Hai, J. (2005) The Lobotomist. ISBN 0471232920
^ "La neurochirurgie fonctionnelle d'affections psychiatriques sévères". Comité Consultatif National d'Ethique. April 25, 2002.
^ "Lobotomy in Norwegian Psychiatry" (PDF).
^ "'My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey". NPR. November 16, 2005.
^ Dully, Howard (March 6th, 2008). My Lobotomy. Ebury Press. ISBN 9780091922122. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

[1] El-Hai, J. (2005) The Lobotomist. ISBN 0471232920

[2] "La neurochirurgie fonctionnelle d'affections psychiatriques sévères". Comité Consultatif National d'Ethique. April 25, 2002.

[3] "Lobotomy in Norwegian Psychiatry" (PDF).

[4] "'My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey". NPR. November 16, 2005.

[5] Dully, Howard (March 6th, 2008). My Lobotomy. Ebury Press. ISBN 9780091922122. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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