Lobotomy is one of the darkest pages of psychosurgery, a gruesome operation performed on patients suffering from mental disorders (mostly women). Even modern medicine doesn't know much about mental health. The brain is a complex organ, and you can't just pick and dig into it with a sharp piece of iron. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened during lobotomy - and the results of such surgical procedures were very deplorable.
When we think of doctors, we imagine someone we can trust. After all, they definitely understand this! Especially in such difficult things as mental illness … And this is what makes the history of lobotomy so tragic. All these patients clearly suffered (although not all of them were sick) and trusted the doctors - and the doctors deceived them. So here are some basic facts from the history of lobotomy.
The founder
In 1935, the Portuguese psychiatrist and neurosurgeon Egas Moniz heard about an experiment: the chimpanzee removed the frontal lobes and her behavior changed, she became obedient and calm. Moniz suggested that if you dissect the white matter of the frontal lobes of the human brain, excluding the influence of the frontal lobes on the rest of the central nervous system, then schizophrenia and other mental disorders associated with aggressive behavior can be treated. The first operation under his leadership was carried out in 1936 and was called "prefrontal leucotomy": a loop was inserted through a hole in the skull into the brain, the rotation of which cut through the white matter of the frontal lobes. Moniz performed about 100 such operations and, after observing the patients for a short time, published the results, according to which a third of the patients recovered, and a third improved,while the rest did not show positive dynamics. Very soon he had followers in other countries. And in 1949, Egash Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the discovery of the therapeutic effects of leukotomy in certain mental illnesses." Who will argue with the Nobel laureate?
Propagandists
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Many became interested in Moniz's discovery, but the most famous propagandist of lobotomy was the American psychiatrist Walter J. Freeman. Here he and his assistant neurosurgeon James Watts. These two are the American lobotomy kings who have personally performed thousands of surgeries. Freeman used electroshock for pain relief. In 1945, he came up with a new method, a transorbital lobotomy, which could be done without drilling into the skull, using an instrument similar to an ice pick. Freeman aimed the narrowed end of the knife at the bone of the eye socket, punched a thin layer of bone with a surgical hammer and inserted the instrument into the brain. After that, with the movement of the knife handle, the fibers of the frontal lobes were cut, which caused irreversible damage to the brain and simply turned every fourth patient into a "vegetable". By the way,the first operations were carried out using a real ice pick, and only then were new surgical instruments developed - leukotome and orbitoclast. Freeman successfully advertised his method of curing the mentally ill: he started a special "lobotomobile" - a camper in which he traveled around the country offering miraculous healing, and performed operations right in front of the audience, in the spirit of a circus performance.
Lobotomy was performed even for children
So, we already roughly imagine how the lobotomy was performed and what types of it existed. But why did the doctors feel the need to dig into the patient's brain like this? Yes, because there were no other, more effective methods of treating mental disorders then, and doctors at that time knew much less about the diseases themselves. Up to the point that a restless, rebellious child, who would now be diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), in those years could be sent to a lobotomy - "since nothing else helps."
Surgical Instruments
These are the tools commonly used when performing a lobotomy. They look like dentist tools - sharp, metal, and menacing. Well, how else should things look like, with the help of which you first need to make a hole in the strongest bone of the skull, and then shred the brain a little? Here you cannot do without a trepanation kit. Well, for transorbital lobotomy - special ice picks.
She changed people forever
If you break your leg or arm, the bone will heal for a long time, but eventually the limb will work again and you will be the same as before. If you accidentally cut off half your finger with a knife and have time to quickly arrive at the hospital, they may even sew your finger back on and everything will be fine. But if you break something in the brain, the chance that everything will return to normal is very, very small. After such a serious intervention as a lobotomy, the patient cannot remain the same person. The only difference is to what extent it can affect him - completely turn him into a zombie or partially change his behavior.
The side effects were dire
After the lobotomy, the person began to behave differently. During the first few weeks, the patients' behavior showed a significant improvement or rather a change from the condition that caused them to be treated. A person who has been depressed may begin to show signs of joy. The schizophrenic patient stopped showing signs of it and began to behave normally. But then the consequences most often followed: a rollback to previous disorders or the development of new, even more serious disorders. Often, after a lobotomy, a person committed suicide.
By the late 1940s, enough experience had already been accumulated to identify the main side effects of lobotomy: unexpected and unacceptable changes in behavior, epileptic seizures in more than half of patients, brain infection, meningitis, osteomyelitis, cerebral hemorrhage, weight gain, loss of urinary control and defecation, death due to surgery with a probability of up to 20%.
John F. Kennedy's sister got a lobotomy
Rosemary Kennedy is the eldest of the sisters of John F. Kennedy, one of the most famous American presidents. The Kennedys were the perfect family and the kids were perfect - everyone except Rosemary. She was born mentally retarded - this was the diagnosis made by the doctors. The girl lagged behind other children in development, could not learn and socialize in the same way as they did. She suffered from mood swings - either frantic activity, or depression. Her IQ was 75. By the age of twenty, her parents did not know what to do: Rosemary became uncontrollable. She was said to have nymphomaniac tendencies and aggressive behavior. Doctors convinced parents to try lobotomy - it just gained popularity as the newest way to cure such patients. It was in 1941, the operation was carried out by the "lobotomy kings" Freeman and Watts,As a result of the operation, Rosemary remained a frail disabled person until the end of her life, with the developmental level of a 2-year-old child and the inability to take care of herself on her own. For the rest of her life - and she died of natural causes in 2005 - Rosemary Kennedy lived away from her family, in a separate house with a nurse.
The consequences of a lobotomy could no longer be corrected
The damage done to the patient by the lobotomy was incomparably more beneficial - even if it was outwardly. In the photo, the woman on the right looks calmer and happier, but does that mean that she really is? It looks like she's just become more manageable. Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia are mental disorders that plague people every day, and many would dream of having a quick surgery to fix it all. But you would hardly want to make yourself an operation, as a result of which part of your personality will be irrevocably destroyed. Today, such patients are usually treated with medication and therapy, and if doctors see a negative effect, the treatment is stopped and another is selected. Here at least there is a chance not to lose yourself completely.
Some statistics
Most lobotomy procedures have been done in the United States (approximately 40,000 people). In the UK - 17,000, in the three Scandinavian countries - Finland, Norway and Sweden - about 9,300 lobotomies. In the early 1950s, about 5,000 lobotomies were performed annually in the United States.
Homosexuals tried to be treated with lobotomy
Homosexuality was considered a sexual perversion due to mental disabilities. Yes, it was a common practice - to treat homosexual tendencies with electric shock or to resort to lobotomy if the electric shock failed. And better - to one and to the other.
What are the frontal lobes of the brain responsible for?
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for many of the things that make us who we are. Brain development is gradual, and the prefrontal cortex is the last to complete, around age 20. She is responsible for self-control, coordination, emotion management, focus, organization, planning, and most importantly, our personality. Terrible, but it is this area that is violated during lobotomy.
Lobotomy was also performed for far-fetched reasons
Sometimes people underwent this operation for some far-fetched and stupid reasons. One woman underwent surgery because she was "the meanest woman on the planet." After the lobotomy, those around her noted her smile and friendliness. Well, she also began to bump into objects a little or drop bags in the middle of the road, but that's okay. The main thing is with a smile on your face. Or here's another case: a little girl had a lobotomy due to the fact that she constantly tore and break her toys. After the operation, she began to tear and break them even more often, but already because she did not understand anything.
Women are the main victims of lobotomy
The majority of the patients undergoing this operation were women. Women were more powerless, more often suffering from depression, anxiety, hysteria, apathy, and it was easy to call them crazy and send them to the hospital, and there - electroshock and lobotomy. The result, perhaps, suited their loved ones: a woman's loss of individuality and the possibility of complete control over her. Women became dependent and obedient.
Lobotomy was quickly banned in the Soviet Union
The first lobotomy in the USSR was carried out in 1944, according to its own technique, close to the method of Egas Moniz. But the lobotomy has not received such a rampant as in America (about 400 operations have been carried out for all the time). In 1949, very strict requirements were established for the selection of patients for whom such a procedure is indicated, a list of clinics and neurosurgeons who had the right to carry out it was compiled. And at the end of 1950, an order was issued prohibiting the use of prefrontal lobotomy in general. The resolution sounded like this: "To refrain from using prefrontal leukotomy for neuropsychiatric diseases, as a method that contradicts the basic principles of surgical treatment of IP Pavlov."
