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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]
In 2007, Dully published My Lobotomy, a memoir co-authored by Charles Fleming. The memoir relates Howard Dully's experiences as a child, the effect of the procedure on his life, his efforts as an adult to discover why the medically unnecessary procedure was performed on him and the effect of the radio broadcast on his life.
A mallet was used to drive the instrument through the thin layer of bone and into the brain along the plane of the bridge of the nose, to a depth of 5 cm. Due to incidents of breakage, a stronger but essentially identical instrument called an orbitoclast was later used. [4] Lobotomies were commonly performed from the 1930s to the 1960s, with a ...
In the United Kingdom, a survey found that in the mid-1970s about 150 people a year were undergoing psychosurgery. A few people underwent the standard pre-frontal leucotomy; the most commonly used operation was subcaudate tractotomy. Methods used to destroy tissue included thermocoagulation, suction, radioisotopes and leucotomes.
The first country to ban lobotomy was the Soviet Union in 1950 as it was considered a practice that violated all forms of human rights. By the 1970s most nations had banned the procedure. A "light" version of Lobotomy, still used today on patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, is called an anterior temporal leucotomy.
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.
Bilateral cingulotomy is a form of psychosurgery, introduced in 1948 as an alternative to lobotomy. Today, it is mainly used in the treatment of depression [1] and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the early years of the twenty-first century, it was used in Russia to treat addiction. [2] [3] [4] It is also used in the treatment of chronic pain. [5]
In 1949, 5,074 lobotomies were carried out in the United States and by 1951, 18,608 people had undergone the controversial procedure in that country. [63] One of the most famous people to have a lobotomy was the sister of John F. Kennedy, Rosemary Kennedy, who was rendered profoundly intellectually disabled as a result of the surgery. [64]