The Rise and Fall of Prefrontal Lobotomy
Posted by John Brownlee
The Neurophilosophy blog has posted a fascinating, concise and extremely moving write-up of the history of the prefrontal lobotomy. It’s utterly riveting, but the below quote — written by a boy who was given a lobotomy to curb his defiant behavior to his step-mother — is heart-shakingly poignant:
My stepmother hated me. I never understood why, but it was clear she’d do anything to get rid of me…If you saw me you’d never know I’d had a lobotomy.
The only thing you’d notice is that I’m very tall and weigh about 350 pounds. But I’ve always felt different - wondered if something’s missing from my soul. I have no memory of the operation, and never had the courage to ask my family about it.
So [recently] I set out on a journey to learn everything I could about my lobotomy…It took me years to get my life together. Through it all I’ve been haunted by questions: ‘Did I do something to deserve this?, Can I ever be normal?’, and, most of all, ‘Why did my dad let this happen?’
The Rise and Fall of the Prefrontal Lobotomy [Neurophilosophy] : Hugo Strikes Back! : Boing Boing : Mind Hacks
Categories: Trepanation, Medical
Posted at 5:00 pm on July 31, 2007
2 Comments -
wow… makes you wonder what was really going on in the minds of the people making that decision (if anything cogent at all).
i think the most disturbing line in there about Freeman is the parenthetical following his description as a “showman”: “He once lobotomized 25 women in a single day.”
…just another person i’d add to the list of folk i wouldn’t mind running down with a van. good find, Brownlee. +RSS’d
Comment by zanbowser — July 31, 2007 @ 6:54 pm
I do believe that quote comes from a feature NPR ran a few years ago about the guy. It’s quite harrowing and worth the listen.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014080
Comment by whitebrice — August 1, 2007 @ 12:06 am