A peak of ice in the brain: the horror of frontal lobotomy

WARNING: graphic

It was the most brutal, most barbaric and most infamous medical procedure of all time: an ice-sting shot through the eyepiece into the brain and "twisted", often leaving the patient in a vegetative state.

The first lobotomy was performed by a Portuguese neurologist who drilled holes in the human skull. But it was only an American psychiatrist who adapted the procedure – using an ice ax and a hammer – that the very word "lobotomy" became widely known and widely feared.

Writer Dorothy Parker once joked: "I would prefer to have a bottle in front of me rather than a frontal lobotomy."

Nevertheless, the popularity of lobotomies spread like wildfire, with thousands of people being subjected to the ten-minute procedure.

One of the most dramatic tragedies was that the terrible consequences were left secret. Before and after photos were released publicly, showing a person "manic-looking", followed by a photo of the same person looking calm or even smiling.

Few people realized that in the "picture after" the patient was often more zombie than human.

Years later, the spade-on-ice lobotomy was known as the medical procedure that "turned fools into idiots".

84 years ago this month, one of the biggest disasters of modern medicine has begun. A scary example of what happens when a "revolutionary new treatment" is put into practice before having been thoroughly tested. We will also examine one of the youngest patients, aged 12, as well as the most famous patient. the tragedy of Rosemary, the sister of US President John F. Kennedy.

This procedure, which he called "leucotomy," was supposed to cure a range of mental health problems, especially depression and schizophrenia, in patients who were thought to be untenable.

Today, we know that his method was barbaric and the fact that he was not a doctor should have sent chills into the back of anyone who is in contact with him.

Yet, in 1949, Moniz received a Nobel Prize for his work. There have been many calls for his price to be revoked, but nothing has been done about it yet.

The theory that Swiss psychologist Gottlieb Burckhardt could have improved mental health through psychosurgery, claimed that he had a 50% success rate after operating schizophrenics.

Although his colleagues criticized his work, Burckhardt claimed that, as a result of the surgery, the patients seemed to calm down. This "calm" was more likely due to patients being in a "zombie-like" or vegetative state, unable to speak or think for themselves.

But the horrible procedure was about to get worse.

An ice-picker in the brain

The American neuropsychiatrist Walter Freeman was intrigued by the work of Moniz and decided to do experiments on his own. Freeman believed that mental illness was caused by hyperactive emotions and that if the brain were cut, it would effectively eliminate those emotions.

After practicing for a few weeks on corpses, Freeman performed the first frontal lobotomy in the United States, to Alice Hood Hammatt, 63, a Kansas housewife who would suffer from anxiety and depression.

With the help of Dr. James Watt, Freeman pierced holes in Hammatt's skull on the left and right frontal lobes. They then inserted a leucotome (a narrow stalk) through the hole on the left side into the exposed part of the brain.

An hour later, Freeman said the operation was a success, although Hammatt had seizures in the weeks following the operation. (Hammatt died five years after her operation, although she managed to spend the last years of her life away from psychiatric institutions.)

This so-called success led Freeman to develop a new plan. He wanted to design a lobotomy faster and less messy than to punch holes in a person's skull. So he started experimenting on corpses again, looking for an easy way to access the brain. He used a tool that he had found in his kitchen – an ice ax.

Freeman realized that he could easily reach the brain using the ice pick that entered the brain through the orbits. He described this form of radically invasive brain surgery as a "transorbital lobotomy", but it has become more commonly known as an "ice lobotomy".

The barbaric procedure caused at least 490 deaths and left thousands of people in a vegetative state.

Unfortunately, in many cases, it was thought to be an improvement in the lives of many people with mental illness because it was now easier for psychiatric institutions or family members to take care of them.

Here is how the lobotomy "icepick" worked:

First of all, the patient lost consciousness by electroshock or simply under local anesthesia (depending on his mental health).

Then, the ice-scoop-like instrument was inserted over the patient's eyeball. With the help of a hammer, the ice pick was hammered into the thin egg-shell bone above the eye where the instrument has been moved up and down to cut off connections with the prefrontal cortex in the frontal lobes of the brain.

It's hard to believe that an ice trapping could be sunk into the most complex part of the human body – the brain – as the instrument was moved from one side to the other (by a man who was not a surgeon.)

The operation was completed in about 10 minutes and in at least a third of the cases, the patients were docile and obnubile and had childish behavior.

According to Freeman, the patient woke up without "any anxiety or apprehension".

THE YOUNGER PATIENT HAD 12 YEARS

Howard Dully, age 12, was forced to undergo a lobotomy because, as his mother-in-law insisted, he was "provocative, dreamy, and even opposed to bedtime". (In other words, he was typical of 12 years).

He was taken to several doctors who all concluded that Howard was "perfectly normal". But his mother-in-law took him to Freeman who suggested he undergo a lobotomy.

Freeman wrote in Howard's diary in November 1968: "I explained to Mrs. Dully that the family should consider the possibility of changing Howard's personality through a transorbital lobotomy. Ms. Dully said it was up to her husband to decide. to talk with him and make him stick. "

December: "Mr. and Mrs. Dully apparently decided to have Howard operated, I suggested that they do not tell Howard anything."

On January 4, 1961, as a result of the lobotomy at the age of 12: "I told Howard what I had done to him … and he took it without shaking. He sits quietly, smiling most of the time without offering anything. "

Howard told National American Public Radio in 2005, at the age of 56, that he always felt different and that he was wondering if he was missing something in his soul .

"I have no memory of the operation and I have never had the courage to ask my family about it."

THE TRAGIC HISTORY OF ROSEMARY KENNEDY

The most famous person to have undergone a lobotomy was Rosemary Kennedy, the sister of the future American president John F. Kennedy.

According to Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, a medical historian, Rosemary would be a rebellious child with occasional mood swings. In November 1941, his father took him to see Freeman, who was then famous.

Freeman diagnosed Rosemary, a 23-year-old man, with a "sluggish depression" and suggested that he undergo a lobotomy to correct his erratic behavior Freeman operated on Rosemary on the spot. 39, unbeknownst to his mother, said Dr. Fitzharris.

"Soon after, it became clear that something had gone wrong." Rosemary could no longer speak and her mental capacity was equivalent to that of a toddler.

"Her father institutionalized her, telling people that her daughter was a mentally retarded rather than admitting that her condition was due to a failed brain operation.

"Only after her death, decades later, the truth about her condition was revealed." Rosemary never regained her ability to speak coherently and remained in her custody until her death. 2005, at the age of 86. She was the first of her siblings to die of natural causes. "

Rosemary's mother, Rose Kennedy, was utterly devastated and saw her daughter's lobotomy as the first of many tragedies in the family.

Interesting note: 80% of lobotomies performed in the United States in the early years were performed on women.

LOBOTOMIES ON THE ROAD

Freeman's ice pick lobotomies were so in demand that he took the "show" on the road, taking his ice pick and his hammer on tour. He visited hundreds of hospitals and psychiatric institutions.

"He practiced steep lobotomies for all kinds of conditions, including headaches, and his truck was later dubbed" the lobotomobile. "Many of his patients had to relearn how to eat and use the toilet. Some have never recovered, "said Dr. Fitzharris.

"And, of course, there were deaths.In 1951, one of his patients died when Freeman suddenly stopped posing for a photo during surgery." The surgical instrument was slipped and went too far into the patient's brain.Many others have been victims of the same fate in the hands of the good doctor. "

THE END OF THE GASTRONOMIC PROCEDURE

Eventually, the horrors of the lobotomy were attacked by the medical community.

In the 1970s, several countries had totally banned the procedure, including Russia, which had banned lobotomies considered "inhuman".

Between 1936 and 1951, an estimated 50,000 lobotomies were performed worldwide.

Why are lobotomies so popular? This is because the alternative – being locked up in a psychiatric facility – was considered worse.

Dr. John Pippard, a psychiatrist, followed hundreds of lobotomic patients in the United Kingdom and opposed the practice, even though he had authorized several himself.

"I became more and more conservative about this because I do not think any of us ever was really happy to put a needle in the brain and stir the works," he said. Dr. Pippard at the BBC.

Freeman finally pulled out his "lobotomobile" and opened a private practice in California; but, contrary to popular belief, he never lost his license to practice medicine.

Today, surgical lobotomy is no longer practiced. (The increase of drugs such as thorazine facilitates lobotomization of patients chemically.)

The story of Anita Welsh is one that pretty much sums up the horrors of a lobotomy. Welsh was lobotomized by Freeman in 1953, due to postnatal depression. His daughter Rebecca told NPR that her mother had spent most of her life in mental institutions. She is convinced that Freeman's lobotomy destroyed her mother's life.

"Personally, I think something at Dr. Freeman's was wanting to conquer people and take away what they were," Welsh said.