Today in History: First Lobotomy performed

It's been a while since I did one of these history things so if this one ends up being sub-par, bear with me. I fell off that horse a long time ago.

Lobotomies have always fascinated me because of their gruesome nature and also because of the fact that nearly 100 years ago we didn't have anywhere near the amount of science behind the things we do. Basically if something appeared to work, it would be put into practice even if we didn't fully understand the side-effects. One could make a connection between this notion and the Covid vaccines for sure, but I'm gonna steer clear of that for the sake of not stirring up controversy.

This is about the first lobotomy that was ever publicly performed and it happened today, 86 years ago

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It's a pretty gory thing to imagine and it also leads me to wonder about how it is that anyone thought to ever try this out on someone. I am certain there was some very unethical stuff going on that lead to people understanding that shoving a stick up someone's nose and swirling around with their brain would calm them the F down, but that is exactly what it did.

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Walter Freeman and James Watts performed the first lobotomy that is on record in George Washington University Hospital and at first, they thought they had discovered something amazing. Patients with mental disorders that in many cases were violent would enter a state of what Freeman described as "surgically induced childhood" where caretakers could have another try at raising the person properly in order to make them functioning members of society.

The observable effects on patients initially seemed to be a success but this was only through the eyes of the people who were not actually the patients. The patients themselves often had zero desire to perform any task and the tasks they would perform served no purpose and were often repetitious and in no way qualified them to perform any sort of employment. Freeman himself stoically referred to patients as "having the personality of an oyster" after the procedure. However, they were no longer causing problems for others and this relieved a great deal of effort that was required to deal with the criminally insane.

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People may recall the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starring Jack Nicholson where he is institutionalized by pleading insanity at trial but upon arriving in the mental institution he inspired the other patients to overthrow the nursing staff. Seen as problematic for all staff, Randle McMurphy (Nicholson) is eventually given a lobotomy in order to have him stop making problems for the staff, which of course he does but is not basically in a vegetative state.

This was the case with most patients despite the medical reviews stating otherwise and there were stories about powerful people having lobotomies performed on their children just to get them out of the way. Rosemary Kennedy of yes, that Kennedy family, was the eldest daughter of JFK's siblings and a lobotomy was performed on her when she was a young adult.

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The procedure was considered experimental at the time and was not approved by the American Medical Association. Doctors assured the Kennedy family that the procedure would be a success but it was determined immediately afterwards that it was an abject failure. Rosemary lost almost all ability of speech and could barely walk. The Kennedy family institutionalized her right away and kept her very existence a secret in order to prevent the marring of their almost royalty-like name in politics. She remained institutionalize and incapable of caring for herself until her death in 2005.

Countries around the world probably could see that the lobotomy was definitely not a good thing but the procedure was continued well into the 80's. It wasn't used frequently but the fact that it was used at all is kind of alarming. One by one nations banned the procedure but surprisingly it was the Soviet Union that was the first country to make it completely illegal.

All in all not many people in the grand scheme of things were affected by this. Although records are sketchy and I am certain that some of these were done "off the books" it appears as though less than 100,000 people in total were lobotomized in the 50 years or so that the procedure was not banned. It may still be used today for all we know although I hope not.

It is technically not illegal in most countries, even to this day. However, there have been advancements that are far more precise and even chemical methods of achieving the desired results without turning a person's brain into mush. The last lobotomy that took place in the United States was performed by the same man that did the first one and it resulted in the death of the patient in 1967.

Everything, good and bad has a beginning somewhere and based on what we know today it is disturbing that the lobotomy was ever performed more than a few times. This particular procedure seems very selfish and just a time saver for families unwilling to deal with problematic children - which is who a majority of the lobotomies were performed on, particularly in Japan. The procedure was first performed in Washington DC on September 14th, 1936.