Lobotomy is a radical surgical operation on the brain, during which parts of the brain are cut off from the rest. This operation was especially popular in the past. Lobotomies were performed on criminals and other “unwanted” persons, and the purpose in this case was to deprive them of their feelings of aggression and other negative feelings. However, the psyche of a person who has undergone a lobotomy changes in a specific way. For example, while maintaining speech, thinking and work skills, the patient loses the ability for purposeful activity, he is not able to draw up an action plan and act according to ready-made instructions. The one who underwent a lobotomy becomes pliable, obedient and submissive.
At the same time, doctors considered lobotomy to be some kind of progress and even salvation, and turned a blind eye to the existing mental disorders, not considering them to be something significant. Meanwhile, a lobotomy caused irreparable damage to a person's personality.
Often this procedure was used for trifling reasons. For example, one pregnant woman had a lobotomy simply because of a headache. As a result, she fell into a "vegetable" state, unable to even take care of herself or eat on her own.
American boy Howard Dulli performed a lobotomy procedure by renowned physician Walter Freeman. It was in the middle of the twentieth century. The boy's stepmother simply did not like that he was a "difficult teenager." And as a result, the boy simply lost his personality and in the future was forced to exist rather than live. Freeman was generally an extraordinary figure in medicine, and at the same time very controversial. He developed an "effective" method of performing a lobotomy without opening the patient's skull. A small tool resembling an ice pick (at first, in fact, it was a real ice knife), was inserted through the bone in the eye socket into the brain, after which the doctor cut off its inflamed parts with a slight movement of the handle. In doing so, however, he could also touch healthy parts. The operation itself could often last no more than ten minutes. Electroconvulsive therapy was used as an anesthetic.
Walter Freeman.
The success of the "good doctor" Freeman was due to the fact that he conducted his experiments on patients in psychiatric clinics, mostly violent. After the operation, they became calm, passive and submissive. At the time, this was considered a cure, as a result of which such patients were discharged from hospitals. Thus, the state was able to save a huge amount of money on the maintenance of these patients. There were no effective methods of real treatment of mental illness at that time, as well as the criteria for recovery. Therefore, it was unclear whether the former violent patients were cured or it only seemed to be from the outside; however, the doctors did not focus on this.
Of course, Dr. Freeman's apparent successes impressed those around him, which he willingly used. So the lobotomy according to the method of this doctor was, if not effective, then very effective.
Promotional video:
Walter Freeman performs a lobotomy.
Sometimes Freeman performed a lobotomy just "for fun," while damaging both hemispheres of the patient's brain. It is not known exactly how many people suffered as a result of such "medical games" of the doctor.
Lobotomy as such was developed by the Portuguese Egash Moniz. For this discovery he received the Nobel Prize; however, many people, including those who underwent this procedure, fundamentally disagreed with such a decision of the scientific commission and demanded an appeal.