The Lobotomist

I saw this about a month ago on the local PBS station. Really interesting. Freeman to his last day believed he was doing the right thing...even though he would kill people in the process. He would go in behind the eye socket and pop in a ice pick with a hammer and scramble the frontal lobe. Absolutely morbid.

Wow.... morbid is an understatement!!!!

not to see for people in Austria :(

right restriction.. *argl*

Damn, I live in Italy and there's the Right Restriction even here... Could it work with those websites which hide your IP?

Freeman owns! ;) Watched it a year ago and wooo..!

how brutal, but i have seen insanity in my life and would have done anything to bring peace to that person. until you experience a loved one going thru pure hell and the results of it on your family, it is hard to judge whether he was wrong or right. the showing off was not professional. he was a pompous son of a bitch

Bring relief to a loved one is understandable but this is
NOT the way to go about it.
Even then there had to be better ways.

If I am not mistaken, this show is available in DVD form at Amazon for $22.49. I purchased this several months ago and was mesmerized watching it. If this helps, here is a link to the item page at Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/...276540204&sr=8-1

excellent video. i've been looking for a documentary like this for a while. thank you for sharing.

I had seen this before. It really gives a whole different angle to why they did it. He really really thought he was helping. At least he was trying to do something! Fantastic video.

Another many failed attempts conducted by the field of Psychiatry.

thanks for the link. very interesting indeed. I guess someone had to try eh?

Curious - I found this website by chance and then spent a lot of time finding out about the way America dealt with mental illness. I'm in no position to be judgemental, for me its (gladly) a remote, further than armslength subject.

For all that I found it fascinating that America needed so many massive institutions, such as Edgewood, Pilgrim, Islip and Kings Park, I guess there are many more but these were big enough to be significant towns in their own right. Then all of a sudden they just became unrequired, neglected and finally derelict.

Along the way I came across two documentaries, "The Lobotomist" and "Let There Be Light" which profoundly disturbed, enlightened, scared and I have to say, fascinated me.

The subject can be viewed as gruesome of course, and rightly. I guess that its impossible to fully understand the motivation of someone like Freeman without living his life.

He appears to be genuinely motivated by a need to help some desperate souls who he probably felt he had a magic cure for. How could you ignore that? And how easy to rationalise away the failures, the ones which responded well and then slowly deteriorated, to the cases who died on the operating table, when the worlds press and the medical community did nothing but tell him he was a saviour.

I fully understand the damage that was done during this bizarre period in medical history, and its inexcusable.

I guess without condoning it in any way, "The Lobotomist" helped me understand in a small way why it happened.

Monumentally great television - its this sort of analysis which helps curb over-entusiastic zealots from getting carried away when the next untested scientific miracle comes along.

Radium based toothpaste for whiter teeth anyone? How about carcinogenic insecticides to make the home more comfortable? Opium based 'soothing syrup' to keep the baby quiet? They have all been touted as a great solution to our problems at some time in our past.

I guess our problem is we want the quick fix, and aren't prepared to wait and find out what the side effects really are - but history always has a habit of showing us...

Great link to post, I just got around to watching this today.. the only thing I wish was that it included more lobotomized patient interviews. I've always been fascinated with lobotomies, for YEARS, and I have a craving to read/listen to people talk about their experiences post-procedure. I also think it's alarming that a 'modified' lobotomy is still performed to this day on select patients, eek.

thanks motts

Thank you for the info, Mr. Motts.

YA, It is restrictied in france
but
THANK YOU MOTTS
YOUTUBE

brilliant vid, i saw this ages ago online. and it has really stayed with me. Did anyone else notice the similarity between Walter Freeman and Dr. Vanacutt from the House On Haunted Hill Remake?

Thnx for all the new posts Motts! I need to stop by more often.

A forum search might reveal past strings about this subject, including Icepick Wally, as I have dubbed him. Some of us have somewhat of a morbid curiosity of such subjects, and I am no exception to that. I do not recall every detail in this documentary, but I highly recommend viewing it.

*Icepick Wally is reported as using genuine icepicks from his own kitchen on his first victims.

*His partner, a legitimate surgeon in prefrontal lobotomy procedures, walked into Wally's office one time to find him pounding an icepick into somebody's head. That ended their association. Freeman was not a surgeon, nor is an office a proper operating theater.

*It's reported that during a prefrontal procedure with Dr. Watts, Wally let go of a heavy cutting instrument so he could step back and get a photo. This instrument then sunk deep into his victim's brain and killed them.

I am certainly no professional in the field, but I believe that lobotomy is a "heroic" procedure that is considered as a last resort. Icepick Wally roamed the countryside pounding icepicks into people's heads, slicing frontal lobes to shreds, as though he was curing the sniffles for everyone. This egotistical man felt his ability as a showman was far more valuable than human life. He was indeed a true madman.

But then, this is all just my opinion. I just call it as I see it. Your mileage may vary.

For more on this subject, the wayback machine on archive dot org might still cough up lobotomy dot info. There you can read the original instructional manual for the Freeman and Watts prefrontal lobotomy procedure. If you dare.

A very interesting video Motts! Thanks for posting!
BTW It's still available on the PBS site, but it's been taken down from Youtube.

Thanks for the link to this video Mr. Motts. How horrifying and chilling. How shameful that Freeman was allowed to continue this for so long. It is courageous and admirable that his sons agreed to participate in this video, and I feel they are correct in that Freeman started out wanting to help patients. He should have stopped when patients were killed, and, as his son says, he should not have changed his motives for doing the procedure from one of trying to help patients, to trying to "empty" out the asylums by lobotomizing people and sending them home. Prettykitty1 and BKW Ontario, Canada.

Was just wondering about St Elizabeth's in DC? Is it still there and have you ever photographed it?

I watched this documentary and walked away feeling conflicted. One can understand why some families of those who were subjected to a lobotomy were grateful. It was the only way to keep those family members at home. However, the doctor's ego seems to have taken over, with drastic results. Unfortunately, our modern day solutions to mental illness (close the hospitals, send the patients out to the streets), don't seem to be any more effective or enlightened.

I tried to watch it at PBS but its not up there either. Hopefully , maybe they'll show it on TV again sometime since I missed it. Like someone else posted its not up at YouTube either...taken down. I think its scary & sad that this was and still is preformed on pts. It just makes me wonder how is putting an ice pick to someone's brain gonna help them?? I guess I just don't see it. It seems it would do one more harm than good really. Plus Angela I do hear what your saying about closing all the hospitals and sending pts out in the streets etc . Some may not have anyone to help them or understand what to do or how to live when that is all that they've known. Some patients probably did need that supervision and still do. Than there are others where the medication we have nowadays helps them (as long as they take it like they should).....Plus, I don't know about the hospitals conditions and the real care that these pts received. It does seem that funds where going down in most communities or State run hospitals so I'd say care would lack because of $$. Now if any former workers at any Hospitals could comment that would be great because I don mean to say things wrong ...so please correct me if I am wrong. Also I am not saying that all pts where treated wrong or in a ill manner in all Hospitals but I am sure that some where and if so that is very very sad. It does happen and I'm sure even in places (like homes of course or nursing homes etc) and its still wrong and still sad. Anyway, sorry to kinda get off the topic. Thanks for the info Motts. I hope you post a new gallery sometime for I check your site everytime I'm online......Thanks for keeping us informed!!!

I've read this on PBS' website. Interesting stuff.

Apparently there are some who felt helped after having a lobotomy. I imagine they are few, but one was a seemingly otherwise normal woman who said it worked wonders for her.

Very interesting PBS series, but even more fascinating is the book they based it on, called "The Lobotomist" by Jack El-Hai. A must-read if you're interested in old Wally and his work. It is both moving, sad and gives a fairly balanced view of who Freeman was, as a person and a doctor, and what drove him. Many patients wrote to him for decades after their operation expressing their appreciation to him, which I found surprising.

sorry the embed code didn't work...
this is the link

http://www.dailymotion...tomist_news?start=50

I remember watching that when it first aired...

First off, thank you Motts for pointing out such interesting material. I just watched the programme and a couple of thoughts come to mind.
Clearly for some patients at the time, the lobotomy was a treatment that worked and helped at least their caregivers. Clearly, it was also abused by overuse - this is nothing specific to that era. Look at the ADHD diagnoses handed out left and right.
But, there's a second part to the story that is missed. The profit motive.
Consider that the lobotomy was a quick and simple procedure that I'm sure if done without showing off would be quite safe. It's a one shot deal.
What replaced it? "Chemical lobotomies" (as stated on the show) which involve a never-ending drugs regimen which means big-time sponsorship from drugs companies, nice symposia for doctors and better yet, patients who will never be able to leave the practitioner's care. Money for all!
So let's not think that what came after lobotomy is lollipops and flowers. It is still a lobotomized population and if you live in a large city, it's also a population that now lives in a cardboard box near you if they leave the chemical diet - which has very negative consequences too.

I bow down humbly in the prensece of such greatness.