Welcome to this new blog entry!!˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

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Today, I'll be talking about the history of lobotomy and how this intervention was a big impact on the history of medicine.

Thanks for reading and I hope you guys like this!! ₍^ >ヮ<^₎ .ᐟ.ᐟ

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In the late 1880s, the Swiss physician Gottlieb Burckhardt decided to remove part of the cerebral cortex of two schizophrenic patients suffering from hallucinations.

After the intervention, both patients were found to be calm, although a few days later one of them died and the other committed suic*de. Still, the intervention was considered a success and was the basis for many similar works.

In 1935, the Portuguese psychiatrist António Egas Moniz published his studies on neurology and aggressive behavior, proposing lobotomy as a remedy for severe mental illness (he was also the inventor of angiography).

Moniz removed the frontal lobe of several chimpanzees, observing that they became docile and submissive after the intervention. This led him to theorize that what provoked aggressive behavior and other mental issues was the internal impact of the lobes against the skull, and that if these were removed, the patients would be immediately cured.

The first human operation was performed in 1936 and was considered a complete success, despite the fact that it only worked in one out of three patients. It was such a success that, in 1949, Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine.

Thousands of doctors chose this method to cure all kinds of mental illnesses and the United States became a great lobotomizing potency, using it even on children.

It was the American neurosurgeons Walter Freeman and James Watts who "perfected" the original technique.

Instead of drilling into the skull on both sides of the head to gain direct access to the brain and perform the removal, they decided to use a modified ice pick and a hammer to access the frontal lobe and injure it through the eye sockets (this is the method most known today). Once the ice pick was inserted, the doctor had to move it from side to side to separate the prefrontal lobe from the thalamus (all this without any care and totally blind). This new method did not require a surgeon, it could be performed by any type of doctor, which helped it to spread throughout the world.

Also, Freeman travelled around the world giving public demonstrations of his technique and instructing other doctors (he literally travelled in a van with all his equipment dubbed the "Lobotomobile"). 

Between the 1940s and 1960s, some 50,000 lobotomies were recorded, with approximately 3,500-5,000 performed by Freeman. 

Among lobotomy cases, the most famous are: 

- John F. Kennedy's sister, Rosemary (she suffered from what was called "mental retardation" at the time and was lobotomised in 1941, leaving her in a vegetable state and with the reasoning capacity of a two-year-old child. She died of natural causes in 2005).

- Howard Dully (lobotomised at the age of 12 for his behavioural problems, which only got worse after the intervention. He was still able to start a family, although he found it difficult to lead a fairly normal life and spent considerable time in prison; he also developed a severe alcohol problem. As a result of what happened, he wrote several books, the most famous being My lobotomy: A memory).

- Eva Perón (she was lobotomised to try to alleviate the pain she was suffering from cancer of the uterus, from which she died on 16 July 1952, at the age of 33. Obviously, the operation did nothing to alleviate her suffering, but only caused her more pain).

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Thank you so much for reading!! ૮꒰◞ ˕ ◟ ྀི꒱ა

If you want me to talk about an especific tpic, let me know in the comments or send me a DM on Instagram (@whosdanix) ૮₍ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ₎ა

Bye for now!! ໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১

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