Every once and a while I come across a news story that I just have to blog about even though it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of my posts. Normally, my topics are usually about my personal journey to know God, especially how I see Him at work in the world around us.
This story just blows my mind... quite literally as a matter of fact. It doesn't really have anything to do with God. But it does make me very thankful that I was never a patient of Dr. Walter Freeman.
While searching CNN the other day, I came across a medical story that I could hardly believe was true. In the past when I would hear about someone having a lobotomy, I always thought it was a joke or just something done in really bad horror movies. But I was wrong. The story that I found was originally part of a NPR report. It chronicles the story of a boy who had a lobotomy done in 1960 because his stepmom couldn't deal with his definate behavior and mood swings. Back then there was very little medicine to treat psychological disorders.
Between 40-50,000 people had lobotomies dones in 1950-1960s to treat various neurological or psychological problems. The thought was that mental illness was related to overactive emotions. By cutting the connections between different areas of the brains, some doctors thought they could do away with chronic mental conditions.
A psychiatrist named Walter Freeman was the biggest promonent of lobotomy treatment. He performed transorbital or "ice-pick" lobotomy procedures in 10-15 minutes. Freeman would take a sharp ice pick-like instrument, it above the patient's eyeball through the orbit of the eye, into the frontal lobes of the brain, moving the instrument back and forth. Then he would do the same thing on the other side of the head.
Basically, Dr. Feeman performed this procedure on Howard Dully, an overactive youngster who likley would have been considered a normal kid today. Howard survived the operation, and he lives a normal life today. But no one really knows how the procedure affected his brain. There were many other lobotomy patients who died or suffered severe brain damage as a result of the operation.
I guess this goes to show that some parents will stoop to any level to make sure that they have some peace and quite around the house.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014080
