History of Lobotomy

Lobotomy is a surgical procedure developed almost a century ago to treat severe mental health conditions. The procedure has varied throughout history but usually involves inserting a sharp instrument into the brain to sever certain neural connections.

Origin

Inspired by the Swiss psychiatrist and surgeon Gottlieb Burckhardt, Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz invented the lobotomy in 1935 and initially called it a “leucotomy.” That same year in November, Moniz performed the procedure for the first time in a Lisbon hospital by drilling holes in the person’s skull and injected pure alcohol into the frontal lobe to destroy the tissue and nerves. In 1949, he received the Nobel Prize in medicine for inventing the procedure. The year after Moniz’s invention, American neurologist Walter Jackson Freeman adopted the procedure and renamed it the lobotomy. He modified the surgery by introducing the use of a surgical tool instead of alcohol, creating the prefrontal lobotomy.

The Procedure

The earliest version of this procedure involved drilling holes in a patient’s head and injecting ethanol into their brain to destroy the nerve connections. This was later refined into:

Prefrontal lobotomy: The surgeon drills holes in either the side or top of the skull and then uses an ice pick-like surgical instrument called a leucotome to manually sever connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex which controls higher cognitive functions like memory, emotions, and problem-solving skills.

Transorbital lobotomy: This procedure works the same way as a prefrontal lobotomy, but the surgeon accesses the person’s brain through their eye sockets.

Effects

Experts once believed the lobotomy to be a miracle cure for mental health conditions. The effects, nevertheless, proved highly variable. The intention was to reduce agitation, anxiety, and excess emotion and act as a sort of forced reset. However, while the procedure was effective at altering behavior and allowing some patients to improve and be discharged after the procedure, many patients became more outspoken, experienced mood swings, lost their ability to feel emotions and became apathetic, unengaged, and unable to concentrate. Some suffered severe and irreparable brain damage, became catatonic, or even died after the procedure.

Lobotomies were widely used from the late 1930s through the early 1950s. Roughly 60,000 lobotomies were performed in the United States and Europe in the 2 decades after the procedure was invented. Today, many people widely consider the procedure barbaric and unnecessary. Although lobotomies are rarely performed, they are technically still legal… even in the U.S.