

The Strange Past and Promising Future of the Lobotomy (2011) - kdazzle
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/lobotomy-history/

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pygy_
Lobectomies have little to do with these lobotomies, beside the fact that you
remove brain tissue.

Lobectomies applied to patients with a single epileptic focus (trigger zone),
and they are narrowly targeted. The focus often lies in the basal portion of
the temporal lobe, near the hippocampus, which is involved in long term memory
consolidation.

The role of the hippocampus was actually discovered after a bilateral temporal
lobectomy, when the procedure was still in its infancy. The patient woke up
with complete, irreversible anterograde amnesia.

The unilateral procedure is safe, though, and is still practiced nowadays.

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thepumpkin1979
Hard to believe this was just 70 years ago, I guess in another 70 years people
will say the same thing about us: "Hard to believe they used to fight cancer
with that horrible Chemotherapy thing".

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Aqueous
It's an interesting comparison, but chemotherapy at least has peer-reviewed
research and clinical experience to back it up, and despite its ill-effects it
can frequently achieve remission from cancer. What Freeman did was monstrous
and completely unscientific, and saying it cured people was like saying that a
leg amputation could cure an aching foot.

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guard-of-terra
People were so uncomfortable with the mentally ill that they made their social
system to accept and reason inhumane and horrible "cures".

It's not unique, happens to drug addicts, for example, in various places.

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pacaro
For a personal perspective on this, which I found horrifying and compelling in
equal measure try the book "My Lobotomy"

<http://www.amazon.com/My-Lobotomy-Howard-Dully/dp/0307381277>

