A surgical procedure that became popular during the 1940s was lobotomy. If you don't know what it is or have never heard of it, I'll explain. It's when a surgeon cuts or scraps away all of the connections to and from the pre-frontal cortex to the rest of the brain. The procedure most commonly used during this time was called transorbital lobotomy, in which they inserted an ice pick through the top part of the eye and pushed it in with a hammer to break the thin bone in order to cut off connections to the pre-frontal cortex.
This was usually done to treat patients in psychiatric hospitals who had schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, among other mental illnesses. During that time period, there weren't any drugs to treat these mental illnesses, so they relied on operations like this one to cure the patients. It was also a time when more and more people were taken to mental hospitals and they were getting full of people. They had to take drastic measures to try and salvage these persons from their illnesses, or so they thought. The following video shows the steps of how they did, or in rare cases still do, a transorbital lobotomy. It's not graphic in the scenes but it is a little with the language and how frigid they make it sound.
They also say and show how the "doctors" would put the patient to an unconscious state, using electroshock therapy until the patient would pass out. They didn't have any other kind of anesthesia in those days either. It amazes me how we look back now and think it was the most awful thing that someone can do. It similar to when they used electroshock therapy and trepanation . I wonder what future generations think is awful of the procedures we currently use, maybe taking so many pills or plastic surgery?
Norma, I really enjoyed reading your post because its interesting how back then they used rare methods to treat patients with a disease, all the different techniques they used that now-a-days you wouldn’t think that’s what they used to do. Science, medicine, technology all have been improving throughout the years that those techniques are rarely used, now they just prescribe medications for whatever symptoms or illness a patient is experiencing.
ReplyDeleteI actually found this to be very interesting and to this day wonder how could someone undergo something like this, and what I found so funny was the end of the video clip that it stated that after the procedure is done the person will leave as a completely new person. I saw it as if there was something wrong with you and could not function in society they would have to correct you and then send you back out. I still can’t imagine how society allowed for something like this to be conducted on a person. At first they will place you unconscious by electroshocking the body and if the body doesn’t become unconscious the first time keep trying again or until the body does. I actually took this to be something like from a Frankenstein movie and that in order to cure a person they will have to conduct a procedure like this.
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