Disturbing Before and After Photos of Lobotomy Patients Will Leave You Concerned About How the Past Handled Mental Health
Kind of makes you think doctors were barbaric...
Lobotomies are one of those things that, while frequently depicted in thriller and horror entertainment, we often neglect to realize have a relatively short history. It wasn't that long ago that they were perpetuated as a common, safe medical procedure with phenomenal outcomes. Or perhaps it is that very thought that makes lobotomies so terrifying to the average consumer enjoying a horror movie?
Either way, the history of the lobotomy is indeed brief. It was only in 1935 that the first human lobotomy was performed by a Portuguese doctor named Egas Moniz, who got the idea of calming down a human after he learned how effective it was at calming down a chimpanzee. Indeed, Moniz is credited with discovering the lobotomy, and if it weren't for his experiments and subsequent published papers advocating it as an innovative method to treat mentally ill people, perhaps the next 20 years wouldn't have been so horrifying for anyone who had to go anywhere near a mental hospital, especially women.
However, credit for popularizing it specifically in the United States goes to a physician named Walter Freeman, who, with no surgical training, took it upon himself to transform the operation from drilling holes in the skull to stabbing patients' brains with an ice pick through the eye socket. Freeman then traveled around the country in a van he called, no joke, the Lobotomobile, where he performed nearly countless lobotomies in a clearly non-sterile environment, each taking only 12 minutes.
Freeman took before and after photographs to highlight the effectiveness of his procedure, believing that his method induced a "surgically induced childhood," leaving people with an "infantile personality" that he believed would eventually mature. Before you start thinking that these photos are a good thing, consider how Freeman went on to describe at least one of his patients:
In an unpublished memoir, he described how the "personality of the patient was changed in some way in the hope of rendering him more amenable to the social pressures under which he was supposed to exist." He described one 29-year-old woman as being, following lobotomy, a "smiling, lazy, and satisfactory patient with the personality of an oyster" who couldn't remember Freeman's name and endlessly poured coffee from an empty pot. When her parents had difficulty dealing with her behavior, Freeman advised a system of rewards (ice cream) and punishment (smacks).
Walter Freeman practiced for 28 years.
And... he kept a record of 3,439 lobotomies he performed during his career.
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In 1952, Freeman performed 228 lobotomies in a two-week period in West Virginia alone. (He lobotomized 25 women in a single day.)
Alina BennettCatatonic before, smiles after.
This was considered proof of the effectiveness of lobotomies.
The 1977 Congress investigated "allegations that psychosurgery—including lobotomy techniques—was used to control minorities and restrain individual rights."
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What things have you seen?
With the help of Freeman and his technique, by 1951, over 18,608 individuals had been lobotomized in the U.S.
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An "unsuccessful" operation by the "Moniz technique."
Freeman really had a high opinion of himself, didn't he?
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From woman to child.
Independence, personality... erased in 12 minutes.
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Two times a charm!
If at first you don't succeed, pick yourself up and try again.
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Three different photos.
Before, immediately after, and during recovery. What do you see in these photos?
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Smile for the camera
Moniz believed the brain would essentially adapt to the injuries inflicted by his procedure, and Freeman set out to prove it.
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There was a wide range of reactions, depending on the individual.
"Some patients died as a result of the operation, and others later committed suicide. Some were left severely brain-damaged."
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Instead of blowing up!
He's employed and went to night school. How lovely.
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The typical change.
Setting precedents.
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After two years of extreme violence.
"Immediately following surgery, patients were often stuporous, confused, and incontinent." But recovery never stopped there.
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At least she maintained the household.
Priorities, I guess.
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"Emphasis was put on the training of patients in the weeks and months following surgery."
"Simple schizophrenia patients make nice household pets after the operation."
It's called medicine; get used to it? This is disturbing.
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Complete Transformation
It's like looking at two different people.
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...but she made no complaints.
Seizures were a common complication of the surgery, but women like this didn't complain, so it must be okay.
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Weight Gain
You may have noticed how frequently the after pictures depict patients gaining significant weight. Developing an enormous appetite and gaining "considerable" weight was a fairly common side effect of the procedure.
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"Age has little weight in the choice of a suffering patient."
Once caged in the basement, he's now allowed out in public. How depressing.
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Anxiety
He worried too much about not finding a job, so they turned him into a shell of a man. Medicine!
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If electric shock fails, jab her eye.
Women are so easy to control once you puncture their brain!
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