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A lobotomy (from Greek λοβός (lobos) 'lobe' and τομή (tomē) 'cut, slice') or leucotomy is a discredited form of neurosurgical treatment for psychiatric disorder or neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy, depression) that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. [1]
Walter Jackson Freeman II (November 14, 1895 – May 31, 1972) was an American physician who specialized in lobotomy. [1] Wanting to simplify lobotomies so that it could be carried out by psychiatrists in psychiatric hospitals, where there were often no operating rooms, surgeons, or anesthesia and limited budgets, Freeman invented a transorbital lobotomy procedure.
The operation involved placing the pick behind the eye socket of the patient and breaking through the thin layer of bone found there by applying a hammer to the end of the pick and driving the instrument into the frontal lobes. The pick would then be swung medially and laterally to separate the frontal lobes from the thalamus. In 1948, Freeman ...
Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable: 19 survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life—effects sufficiently ...
Until Freeman introduced the technique of transorbital lobotomy, psychosurgery required the skills of a surgeon. The standard lobotomy/leucotomy involved drilling burr holes in the skull on the side of the head and inserting a cutting instrument; it was thus a "closed" operation, with the surgeon unable to see exactly what he was cutting.
The American term lobotomy has never been used by medical writers in the UK to describe a psychosurgical operation on the frontal lobe. The standard Freeman-Watts operation, called a lobotomy in the US, was called a leucotomy in the UK. Freeman later developed a psychosurgical technique in which an instrument is inserted through the eye-socket.
I’ve been sort of obsessed with frontal lobotomies because it’s a real thing. They don’t really do it so much anymore obviously, thank God, but in the ’50s and ’60s, this was done ...
A frontal lobotomy (sometimes called frontal leucotomy) successfully reduced distress but at the cost of often blunting the subject's emotions, volition and personality. The indiscriminate use of this psychosurgical procedure, combined with its severe side effects and a mortality rate of 7.4 to 17 per cent, [17] earned it a bad reputation. The ...