The Lobotomist

The Lobotomist

                Walter Freeman was a neurosurgeon who came up with the term and procedure of lobotomy in 1936. The procedure of the lobotomy involves using a sharp tool to cut some of the connections of the brain (frontal lobe and the thalamus) and was intended to relieve symptoms of a mental illness. At first, Freeman used to anesthetize his patients, making holes either on the top or on the side of the patients’ skull and pierce the brain through those holes. This lead to some complications because the operation was not available to those who really needed it, like those who were in mental hospitals as they had no operating rooms, surgeons, anesthesia, or the necessary tools to perform the surgery and neither the hand the necessary budget. Afterwards, he came up with another type of procedure which involved inserting the sharp tool through the eye orbit of the skull and break a small bone plate to access the brain. This was done in order to simplify the operation and make it simple enough so that even the psychiatrists at the state mental hospitals were able to perform the surgery. In 1946, Freeman carried out this operation on a live patient in order to show how the simple the operation is and that it could be carried out in any place without all the equipment that was required on the first lobotomies.

                At first, this procedure was famous because it was showing the world how symptoms of mental diseases such as schizophrenia, severe depression, bipolar and excessive compulsive disorder decreased after the operation. This encouraged Americans to take relatives or people with any of this mental diseases to Freeman and get the lobotomy; in total, between the mid-1930s and the end of 70s, 40,000 to 50,000 Americans went through the operation with Freeman performing around 3,400 of those lobotomies. The operation relieved feelings of anxiety, emotional tension which leads to hallucinations and dealt with catatonic state. However, afterwards some side effects were seen on the patients such as convulsive seizures, blunting of personality, apathy, irresponsibility, distractibility, childishness, facetiousness, lack of tact, lack of discipline and post-operative incontinence. In 1950, the procedure was banned as doctors in the Soviet Union came with the conclusion that unethical and turned people with mental illnesses’ into idiots.

                Personally, I think the procedure was very unethical because it involved hurting the patient to try and “cure” the mental illness without being certain that the operation will successfully improve the situation. The side effects were disastrous to the patients as some of them were unable to perform simple activities such as cleaning themselves or walk. However, I think that in order to obtain a cure or a way to deal with the diseases. First, somebody has to experiment and mess up a couple of times before they get it right. Freeman probably did not use the most ethical approach but thanks to his research the ways of treating people with mental illnesses has changed and have improved for the better.

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