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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.
[1] In 1960, at 12 years of age, Dully was submitted by his father and stepmother for a trans-orbital lobotomy, performed by Freeman for $200 (equivalent to $2,060 in 2023). [2] During the procedure, a long, sharp instrument called an orbitoclast was inserted through each of Dully's eye sockets 7 centimeters (2.8 in) into his brain.
This was an effort by the state of West Virginia and Walter Freeman to use lobotomy to reduce the number of patients in asylums because there was severe overcrowding. [18] [19] By the 1980s, the hospital had a reduced population due to changes in the treatment of mental illness. Those patients who could not be controlled were often locked in cages.
The new procedure also signaled the end of the professional relationship between Freeman and Watts. After performing the new procedure by himself on ten patients, Freeman finally revealed to Watts what he had been doing. Watts, unlike Freeman, was a trained neurosurgeon and adamantly believed lobotomy should be performed only by a proper ...
The 1940s was the decade when psychosurgery was most popular, largely due to the efforts of American neurologist Walter Freeman; its use has been declining since then. Freeman's particular form of psychosurgery, the lobotomy, was last used in the 1970s, but other forms of psychosurgery, such as the cingulotomy and capsulotomy have survived.
Lobotomy patients often show a marked reduction in initiative and inhibition. [19] They may also exhibit difficulty imagining themselves in the position of others because of decreased cognition and detachment from society. [20] Walter Freeman coined the term "surgically induced childhood" and used it constantly to refer to the results of lobotomy.
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 ...
Rosemary Kennedy: Walter Freeman's most famous patient and sister of President John F. Kennedy. She was left with permanent mental incapacity as a result of the procedure, unable to speak or walk. [48] [49] Rose Williams: Sister of Tennessee Williams. [50] Howard Dully: One of Walter Freeman's youngest patients, author of My Lobotomy (2007). [51]