2K US Veterans Lobotomized in '40s, '50s

[11B4V]

  Barbaric

As World War II raged, two Veterans Administration doctors reported witnessing something extraordinary: An eminent neurologist, Walter J. Freeman, and his partner treating a mentally ill patient by cutting open the skull and slicing through neural fibers in the brain.

It was an operation Dr. Freeman called a lobotomy.

Their report landed on the desk of VA chief Frank Hines on July 26, 1943, in the form of a memo recommending lobotomies for veterans with intractable mental illnesses. The operation "may be done, in suitable cases, under local anesthesia," the memo said. It "does not demand a high degree of surgical skill."

The next day Mr. Hines stamped the memo in purple ink: APPROVED.

Over the next dozen or so years, the U.S. government would lobotomize roughly 2,000 American veterans, according to a cache of forgotten VA documents unearthed by The Wall Street Journal, including the memo approved by Mr. Hines. It was a decision made "in accord with our desire to keep abreast of all advances in treatment," the memo said.

The 1943 decision gave birth to an alliance between the VA and lobotomy's most dogged salesman, Dr. Freeman, a man famous in his day and notorious in retrospect. His prolific—some critics say reckless—use of brain surgery to treat mental illness places him today among the most controversial figures in American medical history.

At the VA, Dr. Freeman pushed the frontiers of ethically acceptable medicine. He said VA psychiatrists, untrained in surgery, should be allowed to perform lobotomies by hammering ice-pick-like tools through patients' eye sockets. And he argued that, while their patients' skulls were open anyway, VA surgeons should be permitted to remove samples of living brain for research purposes.

The documents reveal the degree to which the VA was swayed by his pitch. The Journal this week is reporting the first detailed account of the VA's psychosurgery program based on records in the National Archives, Dr. Freeman's own papers at George Washington University, military documents and medical records, as well as interviews with doctors from the era, families of lobotomized vets and one surviving patient, 90-year-old Roman Tritz.

The agency's use of lobotomy tailed off when the first major antipsychotic drug, Thorazine, came on the market in the mid-1950s, and public opinion of Dr. Freeman and his signature surgery pivoted from admiration to horror.
Walter Freeman, lobotomy's dogged salesman Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University

During and immediately after World War II, lobotomies weren't greeted with the dismay they prompt today. Still, Dr. Freeman's views sparked a heated debate inside the agency about the wisdom and ethics of an operation Dr. Freeman himself described as "a surgically induced childhood."
A Biased Enthusiast?
VA doctors embraced Dr. Freeman despite controversy over his advocacy for the operation.

In 1948, one senior VA psychiatrist wrote a memo mocking Dr. Freeman for using lobotomies to treat "practically everything from delinquency to a pain in the neck." Other doctors urged more research before forging ahead with such a dramatic medical intervention. A number objected in particular to the Freeman ice-pick technique.

Yet Dr. Freeman's influence proved decisive. The agency brought Dr. Freeman and his junior partner, neurosurgeon James Watts, aboard as consultants, speakers and inspirations, and its doctors performed lobotomies on veterans at some 50 hospitals from Massachusetts to Oregon.

http://projects.wsj.com/lobotomyfiles/?ch=two

[Razgovory]

Actually not that surprising.  They were pretty primitive back then.  You probably had a better chance with a priest or a wizard then you did a doctor for severe mental health problems.  It wasn't until the late 1950's till they could actually do something useful.  Garbon could probably tell you more about that, the big revolution in pharmaceuticals is more his field.

Actually 2,000 is a fairly low number considering they had something like 15 million people who served in the war.  I imagine they were fairly decent at screening out severe cases.  I wonder what they were treating with surgery.

[Syt]

How did the first lobotomists decides which parts of the brain to tamper with? It doesn't really seem to be the field that lends itself to a trial and error approach. "Let's see what happens if I slice here ... Ooops! Next volunteer, please!"

[The Brain]

If only Mart were here to comment on this story.

[Eddie Teach]

If only Mart were here to comment on this story.

I'm sure we have other posters who have had that experience.

[garbon]

How did the first lobotomists decides which parts of the brain to tamper with? It doesn't really seem to be the field that lends itself to a trial and error approach. "Let's see what happens if I slice here ... Ooops! Next volunteer, please!"

You give those overseeing the mentally ill too much credit and perhaps in some cases humanity. They did experiment with technique. But then there also were case studies of those who suffered brain trauma.

[Darth Wagtaros]

How did the first lobotomists decides which parts of the brain to tamper with? It doesn't really seem to be the field that lends itself to a trial and error approach. "Let's see what happens if I slice here ... Ooops! Next volunteer, please!"

You give those overseeing the mentally ill too much credit and perhaps in some cases humanity. They did experiment with technique. But then there also were case studies of those who suffered brain trauma.

Yeah, their science didn't lend itself towards any kind of medical ethics recognizable today outside of maybe the Chinese or Russian gubbermints.

[dps]

Somehow I mis-read the thread title as "2K UK veternarians lobotomized" which seemed really odd.

[DGuller]

And they're still doing it today, just look at Siege. 

[dps]

And they're still doing it today, just look at Siege. 

I think he came pre-lobotomized.

[Eddie Teach]

He has been reprogrammed though.

[The Larch]

Lobotomy, Portugal's gift to medical science.

[Josquius]

How often did lobotomy not totally destroy someone?
It strikes me that even in such primitive times that after somewhere about turning the hundreth person into a vegetable they should realise it doesn't work.

[The Brain]

How often did lobotomy not totally destroy someone?
It strikes me that even in such primitive times that after somewhere about turning the hundreth person into a vegetable they should realise it doesn't work.

It does work. Kinda.

[garbon]

How often did lobotomy not totally destroy someone?
It strikes me that even in such primitive times that after somewhere about turning the hundreth person into a vegetable they should realise it doesn't work.

As Brain said, it did kind of work. Raving crazy in and potentially calm individual out.