Psychology Addict # 8 | The Rise and Fall of Lobotomy - A psycho-surgery procedure

The Beginnings

It all started in 1935 when Portuguese Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz attended a medical conference in London and learned about the radical behaviour change displayed by monkeys and humans subsequent to damage in the frontal lobes of the brain - a region associated with higher thoughts and possibly where mental illnesses were contained. Intrigued by this Moniz set out to cure mentally ill patients, particularly those afflicted by compulsive behaviour; in what would be known as a psycho-surgery procedure.

Moniz argued that madness was in the chemistry of the synapses which when "stuck" would enter a sort of compulsive circuit. He was then taken by the idea that through cutting these very fibbers, obsessive, compulsive ideas would, if not cured, be at least relived.

In the European winter of the year 1935 the first lobotomy was conducted by Dr. Moniz in Lisbon. Healthy brain tissue was operated on through the drilling of small orifices in the skull from where small cores of brain material were removed. The results of this radical procedure, argued Moniz, were a success compared to the other treatments available at the time, and as he saw one third of his patients showing great improvement he hurriedly published his new discovery.

How Lobotomy became a popular procedure

Throughout the 1930’s and 40’s lobotomy became a very popular procedure in the UK, where it was called leucotomy. There, the authority in the field was Sir Wylie McKissock, who by the year 1946 had performed more than 500 lobotomies. But the fame lobotomy achieved was mainly owed to the American physician Dr. Walter Freeman, a colleague of Moniz, who after learning about the latter’s discoveries, embraced and promoted it with great enthusiasm.

Freeman understood the influence the media had on people and relentlessly promoted the neurosurgical procedure by means of creating movies on the subject, in addition to publishing stories on magazines and newspapers. He even invited writers and journalists to witness lobotomy procedures! Never a clinical trial was organised by Freeman or any other lobotomist. In fact, when Moniz first conducted his first operation, he had no previous practise of it (in non-human animals, for instance).

The demise of Lobotomy

Dr. Moniz won the Nobel Prize in 1949 for his remarkable discovery and cure of mental illness. However, those who underwent the operation did not share the same achievement. One well known patient was Rosemary Kennedy (J.F.K’s sister). She lost all will power and energy, until progressively became fully incapacitated, a common result seen on lobotomy patients who survived the incision, as 1 in 20 did not make it. For this reason, lobotomy was banned in the Soviet Union as early as in the late 30’s, early 40’s.

In the U.S and the U.K the trend began to fade away only in the early 50’s, after it reached its pick as a means to treat post-war mentally afflicted patients. Another factor that contributed to its demise was the arrival of anti-psychotic drugs, also in the 50’s. By the late 60’s lobotomy had completely fallen out of favour and physicians like Freeman could no longer conduct it. It then began to be regarded as a highly unscientific method, as there was no follow-up treatment or care during recovery, for example.

A discovery that, at one point, was regarded as a revolutionary way of alleviating or curing deep suffering and complex illnesses of the psyche, within less the 4 decades was deemed as pure mutilation of the brain. In an instance that inevitably prompts the question: what, in maybe 40 or 50 years from now, when scientists and doctors look back, will be considered the lobotomy of our days?

[Original Content by Abigail Dantes - 2017]

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Reference

El-Hai, J. (2005), The Lobomist: A maverick medical genius and his tragic quest to rid the world of mental illness, New Jersey –NJ, Wiley.