I have always heard about the gruesome act known as a lobotomy. I've also seen the depictions in various films, notably the Nicholson film One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Just the thought of it now makes me shiver. Something about the word "ice pick" and the brain doesn't jive with me (but, did you know that there are other methods of lobotomy? Still makes me shake ...). And then, the actual procedure wherein they shove the "ice pick" into your brain on top of your eye. Eeek.
From Wikipedia:
Freeman decided to access the frontal lobes through the eye sockets, instead of through drilled holes in the scalp. In 1945, he took an icepick from his own kitchen and began to test the new surgical technique on cadavers. The technique was called "transorbital lobotomy," and it involved lifting the upper eyelid and placing the point of a thin surgical instrument (often called a leucotome or orbitoclast) under the eyelid and against the top of the eyesocket. A hammer or mallet was then used to drive the leucotome through the thin layer of bone and into the brain. The leucotome was then moved from side to side, to sever the nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus. In selected patients, the butt of the leucotome was pulled upward, sending the tip farther back into the brain and producing a "deep frontal cut," a more radical form of lobotomy. The leucotome was then withdrawn, and the procedure was repeated on the other side. Walter Freeman first performed a transorbital lobotomy on a live patient in 1946. This new form of psychosurgery was intended for use in State mental hospitals that often did not have the facilities for anesthesia, so Freeman suggested using electroconvulsive therapy to render the patient unconscious.
Well, NPR has recently put together a story they call "My lobotomy". This is the account of one man who underwent such a procedure in the 1960s. The story is fascinating, and it really makes you think about medical science and doctors in general.
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