The novel Bellevue by Robin Cook starts with a description of a procedure which was performed so casually and normally that you would be shocked!
The discoverer of the procedure was given the Nobel prize!
It actually used the literal destruction of brain!
One of the patient was the kin of Kennedy!
The most shocking thing was that in spite of being a physician with no surgical training, there was a ‘neurologist’ who would perform more than 3000 such procedures!
He would develop a special ICEPICK for the procedure done without anesthesia!
The procedure would involve him literally stabbing a patient through the soft plate of the orbit into the brain and making a mince meat of the brain tissue!
The procedure was called Lobotomy! If you were impressed with the Batmobile then you will be shocked with the lobotomobile!
The one who popularized it was Walter Freeman!
Though he was not a trained surgeon, he performed approximately 3,500 to 4,000 lobotomies over four decades, often in non-surgical settings like private offices or mental hospitals.
In 1936, Freeman and neurosurgeon James Watts performed the first American prefrontal lobotomy, a surgical procedure requiring burr holes in the skull to sever neural fibers.
Freeman introduced a faster, cheaper method inspired by an Italian technique. He would tap a slender tool (an orbitoclast) through the thin bone of the eye socket into the brain using a mallet, then sweep it to sever connections in the frontal lobe!
Freeman traveled the U.S. in a van, nicknamed the “lobotomobile,” performing and teaching the transorbital procedure at psychiatric institutions to address overcrowding!
He even lobotomized the sister of John F. Kennedy called Rosemary Kennedy . The procedure left her permanently incapacitated and unable to speak more than a few words!
At age 12, Howard Dully was lobotomized by Freeman (authorized by his stepmother) for being “defiant”. He survived and later shared his story in the book and radio documentary My Lobotomy!
While Freeman claimed many successes, approximately 14% of his patients died from the procedure. Others were left in a vegetative state, became emotionally “flat,” or suffered severe cognitive impairment!
Freeman was banned from performing surgery in 1967 after a patient, Helen Mortensen, died of a cerebral hemorrhage during her third lobotomy by him!
Imagine doing the same savage procedure three times with the third causing death!
The issue here is not only was the procedure savage and crude, it was also the attitude where the ‘surgeon’ would actually treat ‘patients’ like animals (of course even animals MUST be treated well but that it another matter!)!
So the next time your doctor gives you a oral medication for a couple of days; you can trust him or her and take it without asking too many questions especially if he does not have an ICEPICK in his or her chamber!
That’s a joke of course!
Which reminds me of Jagathy Sreekumar and his funny acts! So sad that he can’t act much now…
Let’s dream of a miracle!
Shubh ratri…
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