Essay On Transorbital Lobotomy

A transorbital lobotomy was a famous procedure performed by Dr. Walter Freeman. In 1946 he discovered that you could damage the frontal lobe and not kill the patient but change their personality. He learned this when he picked up an obscured monograph, written by a Portuguese neurologist, named Egaz Moniz. As a result, he then modified Dr. Moniz’s procedure. The way Dr. Freeman’s procedure worked was by first shocking the patient with electricity, so that they would become unconscious. Then he would peel back there eyelid and stick the sharp end of an ice pick into the eye socket angling it above the eye. Dr. Freeman would tap the end of the ice pick with a hammer so that it would go through the orbital bone and then through the frontal lobe of the brain. He then would move the sharp end in the ice pick to mangle the frontal lobe of the brain. He called this procedure, Transorbital Lobotomy. Lobotomies became famous because there was no other treatment available at the time. Lobotomies also had more of a positive outcome for various patients. Eventually a pill was produced, but that wasn't an option when Dr. Freeman first started to perform lobotomies in the 1940’s. This procedure also didn't take much time it was a quick fix. When they first …show more content…
Walter Freeman’s lobotomy was a major breaking point in American culture during the 40’s, We personally believe that it was a medical disaster. The procedure had many severe negative effects on their personality and the ability for them to function as a normal human being. After the invention of Thorazine, that got rid of the need of surgical lobotomy, Dr. Freeman moved to California to engage the attention of single or distraught families. He began to operate on children. We personally believe that he should not perform lobotomy on children. If a child had a bad personally or didn't listen to their parents, Dr. Freeman thought it was logical to operate on children as young as 4 years