The Lobotomist
I just finished reading The Lobotomist by Jack El-Hai, a biography of Walter Freeman, MD, PhD, who pioneered the lobotomy in the US (and invented the infamous transorbital version thereof) for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. I have this morbid-type fascination with lobotomy, and this book fulfilled that fascination so thoroughly as to give me a few nights of uneasy sleep. I read surgical notes for a living, and this thing still made me twitch on occasion.
Nonetheless, it is really an interesting and excellent book on the subject, especially for anyone interested in psychiatry, neurosurgery, mental illness, or even the general history of medicine. I am quite convinced that Freeman, while somewhat overly zealous, was NOT a crazed madman who went around lobotomizing people for fun or simply to make them more pliable (though some governments appear to have considered that use on political agitators). The truth is that more refined methods (though they dare not call them lobotomies) are now being used as last-resort treatments for the severely psychotic-- lasers or radiation creating tiny brain lesions, or electrical stimulators, all of which is designed to disrupt overactive brain signals in certain regions where things like OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) are generated. This is exactly what Freeman was doing with lobotomy-- cutting the connections where such brain hyperactivity resides.
(I'm also granting myself "I accomplished something" points for finishing a work of serious nonfiction, which is something I've rarely done since college.)
Nonetheless, it is really an interesting and excellent book on the subject, especially for anyone interested in psychiatry, neurosurgery, mental illness, or even the general history of medicine. I am quite convinced that Freeman, while somewhat overly zealous, was NOT a crazed madman who went around lobotomizing people for fun or simply to make them more pliable (though some governments appear to have considered that use on political agitators). The truth is that more refined methods (though they dare not call them lobotomies) are now being used as last-resort treatments for the severely psychotic-- lasers or radiation creating tiny brain lesions, or electrical stimulators, all of which is designed to disrupt overactive brain signals in certain regions where things like OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) are generated. This is exactly what Freeman was doing with lobotomy-- cutting the connections where such brain hyperactivity resides.
(I'm also granting myself "I accomplished something" points for finishing a work of serious nonfiction, which is something I've rarely done since college.)