Lobotomy why it works

Within a year of Moniz's procedure, neurologist Walter Freeman and neurosurgeon James Watts performed the first prefrontal lobotomy in the United States. Although Freeman found this procedure great, he wanted to develop a procedure that would be faster, more effective, and require fewer resources and specialized tools. But Freeman wanted lobotomies to be a more streamlined process. So, in —10 years after performing his first lobotomy in the U. Once the ice pick was inside, he literally wiggled it around, severing the nerves connecting the prefrontal cortex to the thalamus.

Though his first transorbital lobotomy was done with an ice pick, Freeman later made his own instrument based on the ice picks design—the orbitoclast. While the prefrontal lobotomy took over an hour, Freeman's transorbital lobotomy could be done in 10 minutes or less.

Because it didn't require anesthesia—patients were knocked out before the operation using ECT—it could be performed outside of the hospital. Shortly after doing his first ice pick lobotomy, Freeman began traveling the country performing lobotomies on all who were willing.

Though lobotomies were initially only used to treat severe mental health condition, Freeman began promoting the lobotomy as a cure for everything from serious mental illness to nervous indigestion. About 50, people received lobotomies in the United States, most of them between and Freeman himself is said to have performed about 3, patients, including 19 children.

The youngest was just 4 years old. In many instances, lobotomies had negative effects on a patient's personality, initiative, inhibitions, empathy, and ability to function on their own.

Here are a few people who underwent lobotomies and the impact the operation had on their lives. Freeman and Watts performed the first lobotomy in the U. Six days after the operation, Hammatt experienced transient language difficulties, disorientation, and agitation.

Nevertheless, Freeman considered the outcome a success. Probably the most notable person to have undergone a lobotomy is Rosemary Kennedy, sister of U. President John F. As a child and young adult, Kennedy has mild developmental delays that impaired her performance in school.

As Rosemary got older, she reportedly began to experience violent seizures and temper tantrums, lashing out at those around her. Seeking a treatment to ease her outbursts and fearing that Rosemary's behavior would create a bad reputation for herself and for the whole family, Rosemary's father arranged a lobotomy for Rosemary when she was 23 years old. Throughout the entire procedure, Rosemary is said to have been awake, speaking with doctors, and reciting poems to nurses.

Doctors knew the procedure was over when she stopped speaking. Following the procedure she became severely disabled. She was unable to function independently, and was institutionalized for the remainder of her life.

The lobotomy is considered one of the most barbaric treatments in the history of modern medicine. Even in the s, lobotomies were the subject of growing controversy.

But despite it's ethical issues regarding the procedure, it gained widespread popularity for several reasons:. Studies of these procedures found evidence of benefit for at least one fourth of patients suffering from problems such as OCD and depression. Even with the risk of side effects, those in the field still say the procedures were by and large successful.

By the s, lobotomies had fallen out of fashion. A then-new technique called deep-brain stimulation made ablative surgery obsolete. In the procedure, a surgeon drills holes in the head and inserts electrodes into the neural tissue.

When current passes through the leads, they activate or inactivate patches of the brain. His original technique was adapted by others, but the basic idea remained the same.

Surgeons would drill a pair of holes into the skull, either at the side or top, and push a sharp instrument - a leucotome - into the brain. The surgeon would sweep this from side to side, to cut the connections between the frontal lobes and the rest of the brain. Moniz reported dramatic improvements for his first 20 patients. The operation was seized on with enthusiasm by the American neurologist Walter Freeman who became an evangelist for the procedure, performing the first lobotomy in the US in , then spreading it across the globe.

From the early s, it began to be seen as a miracle cure here in the UK, where surgeons performed proportionately more lobotomies than even in the US. Despite opposition from some doctors - especially psychoanalysts - it became a mainstream part of psychiatry with more than 1, operations a year in the UK at its peak.

It was used to treat a range of illnesses, from schizophrenia to depression and compulsive disorders. The reason for its popularity was simple - the alternative was worse. The chance of a cure through lobotomy seemed preferable to the life sentence of incarceration in an institution.

But by far the most prolific lobotomist in the country, and indeed the world, was the neurosurgeon Sir Wylie McKissock, based at the Atkinson Morley hospital in Wimbledon.

He believes his former boss performed around 3, lobotomies, as part of his famously speedy approach to surgery.