The modern frontal lobotomy was developed in 1935 in Europe by Egas Moniz after he observed that chimps who had been lobotomized became less aggressive. The purpose of a lobotomy was simple and chilling: sever the prefontal cortex from the rest of the brain, thereby theoretically short-circuiting strong emotions and troubling behaviors.
Psychiatrist Walter Freeman and neurosurgeon James Watts brought the lobotomy to the United States in 1936. In 1946, Freeman developed the ice pick lobotomy which allowed a doctor to drive an ice pick into the brain from the eye socket. Ice pick or assembly line lobotomies took only a few minutes to perform, and after their introduction, as many as 5000 people were lobotomized in the United States each year.
Of course everyone who underwent a lobotomy has or had a unique story to tell, but some lobotomies are especially notable because they involved a celebrity or special circumstances.
Lobotomies That Healed
Gruesome as the whole idea of psychosurgery sounds, some people were genuinely helped by the procedure.
Sallie Ellen Ionescoe
Ionescoe's lobotomy is significant because she was the first person in the United States to undergo Dr. Walter Freeman's ice pick lobotomy procedure. Prior to her lobotomy, she was plagued with devastating suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Her lobotomy in 1946 at the age of 29 left her with some memory loss, but successfully resolved the suicidal ideation.
Both the patient and her family considered the lobotomy a good thing and a success. Ionescoe survived to reach the age of 90, in 2007.
Alys Robi (aka Alice Robitaille)
Alys Robi was a French Canadian singer with an unmatched voice and a promising career. Sadly, she suffered a serious bout of depression following a car accident and a failed love affair.
She was lobotomized against her will at the age of 29 in 1952. Although she was initially against the procedure, it did alleviate her symptoms. Referring to herself as "a rare success story" she returned to her singing career. She found a measure of success, but never quite regained the popularity she had enjoyed prior to her breakdown.
Prefrontal Lobotomies That Harmed
Although some people's symptoms and life circumstances were improved by a lobotomy, many people were left even worse off than they had been.
Rosemary Kennedy
The sister of John F. Kennedy was born with a mild developmental disability and required special help with learning all her life. As she grew older, she began to act out violently at times. She also developed embarrassing attractions to boys.
Her father, Joseph Kennedy, arranged for her to have a lobotomy in 1941 at the age of 23. Following the lobotomy, however, Rosemary's cognitive status declined significantly and she spent the rest of her life in institutions.
Rose Williams
Rose was the older sister of playwright Tennessee Williams. Throughout her life she had been shy and grew almost psychotically anxious when forced to interact with strangers, especially men. As she grew older, she began to have breakdowns and suicidal thoughts. Even worse for her puritanical mother, Rose also developed sexual obsessions, at one point accusing her father of molesting her.
Rose's mother hoped the lobotomy would silence her daughter's accusations, but after the procedure, Rose remained sexually focused, sometimes masturbating publicly. Other side effects included memory loss and an inability to carry on a coherent conversation.
Howard Dully
Howard Dully's lobotomy was notable because it was performed by Dr. Freeman in 1966 when Dully was only twelve. His stepmother, with whom he had never had a good relationship, told the doctor that he was defiant and "savage." After the lobotomy, he was still not docile enough for her taste, and she surrendered him to the state.
Dully had no memory of the procedure, but he told a reporter from NPR that he had always felt something was missing from his soul.
Lethal Lobotomies
Even proponents of lobotomies acknowledged that they had approximately a 3% mortality rate. Some people who underwent them died as a result.
Sigrid Hjerten
Hjerten was a Swedish modernist painter. Her talent was undeniable, but she lived a troubled life fraught with mental problems and hospitalizations. Her final breakdown occurred in 1937, and she was hospitalized permanently. She died after a botched lobotomy in 1948.
Josef Hassid
Hassid was a Polish violin prodigy who won the respect of the music world from his first stage performance in London at the age of 16. But Hassid had been a shy and nervous boy, and by 1941 the pressures of performing were causing him to suffer memory lapses and depression. He was hospitalized and given shock treatments, but shortly following his release he suffered a complete breakdown. This time the diagnosis was schizophrenia. He was committed to a mental asylum in Surrey where he died in 1950 at the age of 26 following a badly done lobotomy.
Warner Baxter
Baxter was an American actor who was wildly popular in the 1930's and 1940's. In 1929, he won an Academy Award for his role of The Cisco Kid in Old Arizona. By 1936, he was the highest paid actor in Hollywood.
But his popularity began to taper off after he suffered a nervous breakdown in the early 1940's. Even worse, as he grew older, he began to suffer from crippling arthritis pain. Unlike most people who were lobotomized for psychiatric reasons, Baxter chose to undergo a lobotomy in hopes of easing his intractable pain. He died of pneumonia in 1951, shortly after undergoing the procedure.
The End of Lobotomies
By the 1960's, doctors were beginning to use the newly discovered psychotropic drugs to treat the symptoms of mental illness, and lobotomies fell out of favor. It is still fascinating, however, to look back to an era when psychosurgery was the best hope psychiatrists could offer to their patients. For more information on lobotomies, see The History of the Frontal Lobotomy in the United States.
Sources
"Blogball" on Listserve: Ultimate Top Ten Lists. Top Ten Fascinating and Notable Lobotomies. June 24, 2009. (Accessed 6/20/10).
NPR. 'My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey. November 16, 2005 (Accessed 6/20/10).
Sabatini, R.M.E. Lobotomy's Hall of Fame (Accessed 6/20/10).
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