Lobotomy

A transorbital lobotomy is when a pick like instrument, ie an icepick, is forced through the back of the patient's eye socket to sever connections with the prefrontal cortex, a part of the frontal lobe of the brain. Furthermore, the lobotomy was thought to be a “cure” for various mental illnesses, including anxiety, schizophrenia, and depression, but a lobotomy was performed on Howard simply because his step mother needed a way to “fix” him and get rid of him. Consequently, Howard suffered for decades because of his lobotomy, facing abuse, asylums, drugs, criminal activity,…

Thesis: Controversy surrounding lobotomy prevent it from being studied again for treating chronic diseases. Lack of studies, ethical disputes among medical doctors and scientist have led to the demise of lobotomy and at the same time stopped neurological knowledge to grow as a field. Source 1: M.D. Miller, A. "The Lobotomy Patient- A Decade Later: A Follow- Up Study of a Research Project Started in 1948" Canada Medical Association Journal, vol.96 (1967): 1095-1103 In this article,…

The damage brought to Gage’s frontal cortex had caused an inhibition in his social skills, resulting in inappropriate or altered behavior. Stated by his wife and other close friends, “He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity…manifesting but little deference for his fellows…” (Costandi, 2006). These changes in Gage’s personality showed no resemblance of his personality before the accident. The direct cause of these personality changes was due to the damage the…

Henry Laughlin did not care for the mental patients’ rights and performed sterilization without their knowledge and consent. In this time period their belief “was on eugenics and looking to produce the best possible race”. Surgeon John Fulton performed a lobotomy on two chimpanzees, causing the usually moody animals to calm down. In turn, the successful surgery greatly influenced a professor from the University of Lisbon Medical School named Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz. Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz “he…

Prefrontal and transorbital lobotomy was a commonly used treatment to cure madness during the mid 1900’s. This invasive procedure was tested on as many as 50,000 institutionalized mad patients. This was a desperate procedure, and was only used when all other forms of treatment failed. There’s a lot of controversy surrounding this horrific procedure. Where the cure rates after this procedure were not as high as everyone thought, and the terrible risks that can come from getting a lobotomy. When…

Reviewing the article titled A Brief History of the Lobotomy by Dr. C. George Boeree, gave much insight into the gruesome history of lobotomy. As many know, lobotomy is a neurosurgical procedure in which nerve pathways in a lobe or lobes of the brain are severed from other areas in order to terminate contact and improve ones mental health condition. This theory developed in 1890 when a German researcher, Friederich Golz, removed portions of his dogs’ temporal lobes and noticed a change in…

champion the century’s most infamous procedure the lobotomy. He wanted to solve all of the problems of psychiatry and he wanted to do it fast. The lesson here is not how man can go off the rails but how science can go off the rails. Elina was the first patient to undergo the procedure that the doctor had only perfected weeks before he called it transorbital lobotomy. In a transorbital lobotomy, Freeman would first have the patient rendered unconscious by using an electroconvulsive shock machine.…

The first group of institutions were smaller and focused more on offering individualized care, while having good intentions. Since the first documented insane asylum, there have been specific treatments and medicines used for the mentally ill. The standard medicine given to mentally ill patients included performing lobotomies, electroconvulsive therapy, bloodletting, etc. Many of these cruel treatments were no longer being performed at institutions since they were dangerous and had mixed…

In the film we viewed in class we viewed a video about various people who try various procedures to solve their various psychological disorders. In the film they briefly mentioned and showed what a lobotomy was. It seemed barbaric, but it was also able to catch my interest. Throughout this paper I will provide a brief explanation of what a lobotomy is, how it works, and why it was done in the past. A lobotomy is a surgery that involves removing or damaging part of the brain. They were…

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…