All those against Lobotomies, raise your hand… Alex Covert 10/20/1965 Pendleton Mental Health Conference

What is a lobotomy? Its Greek. Lobe or brain and tome or cut is what a lobotomy is. It’s a neurosurgical (brain) procedure. It consists of cutting the connections to and from the front part of the brain, called the frontal lobes.

Lobotomy for whom? Lobotomies were used to treat a wide range of severe disorders. If you had schizophrenia, clinical depression, and various anxiety disorders, a lobotomy for you. If you are a nuisance or if you demonstrate bad behavior like “moodiness" or "youthful defiance", a lobotomy for you.

Where did it come from? It started in 1890, when Dr. Gottlieb Burckhardt from Switzerland removed pieces of the frontal lobes of six patients in a hospital. Burckhardt claimed a 50% success rate, by that three of them felt better and more happy No one knows what the other three felt like

melius anceps remedium quam nullum More History primum non nocere Burckhardt said in 1891 "Doctors are different by nature. One kind adheres to the old principle: first, do no harm; the other one says: it is better to do something than do nothing. Burckhardt belong to the second part”. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) melius anceps remedium quam nullum

More History from Latin America to America In 1935, Portuguese Dr. António Egas Moniz stated a new lobotomy procedure by drilling holes in the patient's head and destroying tissue in the frontal lobes by injecting alcohol in it. In 1949, He was actually given the Nobel Prize for medicine for this work.

America’s way to deal with the sick It didn’t hit the US until 1936 when Dr. Walter Freeman and Dr. James W. Watts, performed the first lobotomy. Walter Freeman believed this surgery would be unavailable to those he saw as needing it most: patients in state mental hospitals having no operating rooms, surgeons, or anesthesia, and limited budgets. Freeman wanted to simplify the procedure so that it could be carried out by psychiatrists in mental asylums, which housed roughly 600,000 American inpatients at the time. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The How-To The new and improved procedure from Freeman involved lifting the upper eyelid and placing the point of a thin surgical instrument under the eyelid and against the top of the eyesocket. Then the doctor would used a hammer to break the bone into the brain. Once in the brain, a knife would cut the nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the rest of the brain.

Wait, the USSR Stopped With the side effects growing many grew concerned about the practice of lobotomy. The USSR banned the procedure in 1950. Doctors in the Soviet Union concluded that the procedure was "contrary to the principles of humanity" and that it turned "an insane person into an idiot." Lobotomy continued to be legally practiced and regulated the U.S., Finland, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Yet the Procedure Continues Country/ Region Number of Procedures Done United States 40,000 Great Britain (England, Wales, and Scotland) 17,000 Scandinavian (Sweden, Finland, and Norway) 9,300 (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Famous Victims of the Lobotomies Rosemary Kennedy, the sister of President John F. Kennedy, was given a lobotomy when her father complained to doctors about the 23-year-old's moodiness. Dr. Walter Freeman did the procedure himself, as he was the expect in the field. Rather than any improvement, the lobotomy reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality including incontinence. Her verbal skills were reduced to unintelligible babble. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

More Famous Victims of the Lobotomies The older sister of playwright Tennessee Williams, Rose, received a lobotomy which left her incapacitated for life and provided inspiration for his plays Suddenly, Last Summer, The Glass Menagerie and the character Blanche in his play A Streetcar Named Desire. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Vivien Leigh as Blanche (Rose) in “A Streetcar Named Desire”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Lobotomies have been featured in several novel that has allowed much change to happen is society and medical world. One such feature was found in Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and its 1975 movie adaptation.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest In the novel, many of the patients in the ward receive lobotomies in order to discipline or to calm them. The operation is described as brutal and abusive, a "frontal-lobe castration." The book's narrator, Chief Bromden, is shocked: "There's nothin' in the face. Just like one of those store dummies." He also said "You can see by his eyes how they burned him out over there; his eyes are all smoked up and gray and deserted inside.“ (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest The main character, McMurphy, also receives a lobotomy and at the end of the novel is in a vegetative state, no longer himself. Chief does not want any of the other patients see McMurphy in this condition because then Nurse Ratched would have won in breaking him and the ward at her own will. As a result, Chief covers his face with a pillow during the night, so that he can die as he would have wanted.

The End Thank you for your attention and I hope one day that these unnecessary procedures will become apart of the distance past of this country and the world and with your help this could happen. Please contact your Congressman for the needed change! You never know you could end up on the table… A table that would have been used in the procedure.