The Operation Healing Souls: The Lobotomy History

Introduction

• Warning: Content may be unfit for sensitive viewers.
• UWAGA! NAUKOWY BEŁKOT presents on the history of lobotomy.

Mind and Will

• Benjamin Libet's Experiment (1990s):
  • Asked students to move their finger and noted the sequence of events:
    1. Motor cortex activity
    2. Conscious decision to move
    3. Actual finger movement
  • Suggests the unconscious mind decides before we are aware.
• Implication on Free Will:
  • Brain may make decisions before conscious awareness.
  • People with certain brain damages (e.g., stroke) can exhibit behaviors that indicate a lack of awareness about their condition (anosognosia).

History and Development of Lobotomy

• Phineas Gage (1848):
  • Accident involving a rod through his skull, damaging his frontal lobes.
  • Resulted in a major personality change, highlighting the role of frontal lobes in behavior and personality.
• Early Psycho-Surgery:
  • 1872: Roberts Bartholow conducted unethical experiments on a woman with a brain injury.
  • Stalled U.S. psycho-surgery due to ethical backlash.

Emergence of Lobotomy

• Gottlieb Burckhardt (1888):
  • First lobotomies performed on six patients.
  • Lacked scientific grounding; results were mixed.
• Advancements:
  • John Fulton (1935): Presented on emotional effects of frontal lobe damage in chimpanzees.
  • Egas Moniz (1935): Developed leucotomy based on Fulton's work; won Nobel Prize in 1949.

Lobotomy in the U.S.

• Walter Freeman and James Watts:
  • Pioneers of lobotomy in the U.S.
  • Developed transorbital lobotomy ("ice-pick" method done through the eye socket) without proper surgical precautions.

Decline of Lobotomy

• 1952: Introduction of the first antipsychotic drug (Chlorpromazine).
• Shift away from lobotomy due to new treatments and ethical concerns:
  • 40,000 lobotomies performed in the U.S.
  • 17,000 in the UK
  • 15,000 in Nordic countries
  • USSR was the first to ban lobotomies.

Shift in Perspective on Lobotomy

• Initial optimism in the context of limited mental health treatments.
• Modern retroactive critique of ethical and medical practices.
• Ongoing Learning about the Brain:
  • Contributions from Psychosurgery to Neuroscience.
  • Cases like Henry Molaison (H.M.) and the mapping of brain functions.

Conclusion

• Lobotomy as a complex and controversial chapter in medical history.
• Modern perspective on the necessity of ethical considerations in medical innovations.

Suggested Reading

• Book recommendation on Henry Molaison by William Scoville's grandson, exploring psychosurgery's history.

Closing Thoughts

• Future explorations on the brain's deceptions.