The Short Sad Story of Psycho Surgery

Psychosurgery first began in 1935 with Portuguese psychiatrist Egas Moniz

. He called it leucotomy which meant cutting through white tissue, and was described the procedure as one would "core an apple".

American psychiatrist Walter Freeman later gave leucotomy a new name frontal lobotomy. It involved inserting an ice pick like device under the eyelid and driving it up into the brain by pushing it through the bone at the back of the eye socket, by hitting the pick with a surgical mallet.

This treatment allowed the psychiatrist to then insert the ice pick into the brain and slash it back and forth severing fibres of the frontal brain lobes, causing brain damage.

Freeman innovated further by giving his psychiatric patients electroshock before hand to anesthetize the brain.

Freeman's most famous patient was the sister of John F. Kennedy, later President of the United States. At the age of 23 Rose Marie Kennedy underwent a lobotomy to calm her mood swings. It permanently incapacitated her.

In 1941, Rosemary, as she was called, was given her lobotomy by James Watts and Walter Freeman. "We went in through the top of the head. She was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision, no more than an inch." Dr. Watts cut and Dr. Freeman put questions to Rosemary. He asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer and other items. "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." It was reported that when she began to be coherent they stopped.

Rosemary was left as an infant mentally. She stared blankly at walls for hours and her speech was unintelligible.

Publically Rosemary was declared mentally handicapped and lived in her condition for the rest of her life until 2005.

Psychosurgery today is performed in isolated instances. In China it is still in use for people with drug and alcohol dependence. In India it had similar use. In the USA the Massachusetts General Hospital has a psychosurgery program, along with some other venues. Mexico uses psychosurgery for treating anorexia. In Japan it was abandoned after it was used too often on children for behavioural problems.

There are some legal restrictions on its use around the world today. There is no general consensus of how and under what conditions it could be used.

Psychosurgery has the flaw in that it has, and still is, being used to treat behavioural problems, and the source of these problems is speculative. This, along with no real results, leads to claims that it is not science.

The Short Sad Story of Psycho Surgery

By: James R Richards

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