Lobotomy

In conversation, one can sometimes hear the term `Lobotomy` or the adjective `lobotomized`. Although the interlocutor usually uses it for derogatory purposes in some context, few of those who have used that unusually sounding and juicy word actually know what a lobotomy is. A lobotomy is a special neurosurgical procedure that surgically removes part of the patient's brain. It is performed on patients with the most severe psychiatric disorders, when the psychologist and psychiatrist have given up and consider the patient a hopeless case, when all sessions, therapies, psychoanalysis, medications, electro and insulin shocks, epileptic shocks with Cardiazole and even Exorcism (why not?) are unsuccessful...then as a last resort, lobotomy remains, a kind of "silver bullet" to save the mentally ill patient.

Depending on the disorder to be treated, there are basically three types of lobotomies:

- Frontal lobotomy, which is used for the most severe cases and is performed by drilling a hole in the patient's skull, eliminating part of the frontal cortex of the brain. For this purpose, a metal instrument called a Leucotome is used to cut the brain, and there is another, more subtle variant where highly concentrated alcohol is injected into the cortex.

- Prefrontal lobotomy, which is also used in severe cases, but unlike the frontal one, a precise scalpel is used to cut part of the cortex.

- Transorbital lobotomy, which is used in less severe cases and was the most commonly used of the three types. The procedure consists of placing special instruments in the eye sockets from where the frontal cortex is reached and a short and quick intervention is performed by cutting some nerves. Patients who underwent transorbital lobotomy wore dark glasses for some time after the operation, to protect their eyes.

In addition to the differences in the technical performance of these three types of lobotomy, there are also differences in the results of them. The frontal and prefrontal procedures most often end in the patient becoming a plant, but with the transorbital patients can continue their lives more or less... let's say normally...The first lobotomies date back to ancient times, although not under that name, when holes were drilled in the skulls of mentally ill people and part of the brain was removed in a primitive way in order to "exorcise evil spirits" (a procedure known as Trepanation) that were believed to have "possessed" the person, i.e. the madness of which there was no clear idea what madness exactly was.

Interest in drilling holes into the heads of insane patients was sparked in the mid-nineteenth century by a bizarre incident involving an unusually thick head. That head belonged to a certain Phineas Gage, lobotomized before it was cool. Although he was not lobotomized in the precise medical sense, this railroad worker in the United States gained worldwide fame for the incredible circumstances under which he survived having a metal rod driven into his skull. The rod entered through Phineas' eye and exited the back of his head. Despite this, Gage survived - but with a drastically changed character and behavior, and his medical case served as an inspiration for many future neurosurgeons, convinced of the possibilities of surgical modification of patients' behavior...

A pioneer in the field of lobotomy was the German physician Gottlieb Burkhardt, who performed the first "crude" lobotomies in the modern sense in 1888. Dr. Burkhardt treated several patients with lobotomies. The first lobotomized patient died in five days, the second in a little longer due to a severe epileptic seizure, the third had a successful operation but unfortunately committed suicide a few months later, the fourth and fifth showed no reaction after the lobotomy and the sixth and seventh became somehow too "quiet" after the procedure...Over time, lobotomy was perfected, and a revolution was made by the Portuguese doctor António Egas Muñiz, who in the thirties defined three types of lobotomy depending on the need for treatment and the degree of insanity in the patient. He performed hundreds of lobotomies in his career.

His work was followed up by the Englishmen Fulton and Carlyle, who lobotomized a chimpanzee with supposedly established madness in the laboratory - in order to obtain experimental results that they would later use when lobotomizing people. For his contributions to the perfection of lobotomy - Dr. Muñiz received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1949. This decision by the Nobel Committee later caused controversy as this procedure was considered inhumane and barbaric.

In the United States, lobotomy experienced its heyday, for example, by 1951 over 20,000 lobotomies had been performed, in Canada 150 to 160 lobotomies were performed annually, in Britain 17,000 patients were lobotomized, and this procedure reached its peak in Scandinavia, where by far the most lobotomies per capita were performed. Among the most famous cases of lobotomy are those of Rosemary Kennedy, the sister of US President John F. Kennedy who was lobotomized at the age of 23, Swedish painter Sigrid Hjerten who died immediately after the lobotomization, Josef Hasid, a phenomenally talented Jewish pianist whose world career was cut short by a botched lobotomy, Canadian singer Alize Roby, Howard Dalí who was forcibly lobotomized at the age of 12 and later wrote a book about his suffering, Oscar-winning actor Werner Baxter, Hollywood actress Frances Farmer, Rosa Williams (sister of writer Tennessee Williams) and a few years ago information emerged that Eva ``Don't Cry for Me, Argentino'' Perón, wife of Argentine leader Juan Perón and a symbol of the nation - was lobotomized a few months before her death in a last-ditch attempt to bring sanity to her...through a hole in her skull.

Many famous people narrowly avoided being lobotomized, two such cases occurred at the `McLean` VIP asylum in the USA, where the possibility of lobotomy was once considered for the poet Sylvia Plath, the singer Ray Charles and other more or less famous people...The most productive hospital for lobotomy was the `Danvers` asylum in the town of the same name in Massachusetts, which became synonymous with practicing lobotomy (although most often forced) on numerous patients. Interestingly, in the USSR this procedure was used for only a few years and was abandoned as a practice due to its inhumanity and even banned in 1950.

In the USA, a major problem was the fact that the asylums were overcrowded and there was no room for new patients, nor funds for sufficient treatment of those who were already institutionalized, which led many doctors to decide on lobotomy for severe cases just to not bother with them anymore and to free up space for new patients... The most notorious was Walter Freeman, the doyen of skull drilling, the Michael Jordan of lobotomy, who holds the record for the most lobotomies performed in the world (he lobotomized literally thousands of people). He also treated people whose families wanted to get rid of and sent them for lobotomy under the simple pretext of being insane. Many potential heirs to property and money ended up under Freeman's hammer and ice pick for such reasons.

There were different opinions about its success, but over time, the prevailing opinion was that the results were modest due to the possibility of the madman ending up as an idiot or imbecile. Later, the number of lobotomies was significantly reduced with the appearance of the drug Thorazine, which was considered a "chemical" lobotomy. Belgium, for example, reportedly still has this therapy and about 70 lobotomies were performed annually...In the four local mental health institutions, popularly called madhouses (Bardovci, Demir Hisar, Negorci and Demir Kapija), this treatment was never included in the treatment program for the mentally ill. Lobotomy as a phenomenon was and still is inspiring in literature, film and music. In literature, the most famous work that deals with lobotomy (among other things) would be "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Cayce.

As for cinema, the most impressive film is certainly the adaptation of Casey's novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - one of the best films of all time and a springboard for many later famous actors, "Pi" (with the famous scene of a self-made lobotomy with a pine machine) and "Frances", a moving biographical drama about the aforementioned actress Frances Farmer, whose incompatibility with her environment was predictably interpreted as madness, and madness was treated with a spike in the skull...Music remembers the punk rockers The Ruts, whose song with the simple title `Lobotomy` is more of a criticism of social norms than a celebration of the procedure itself, then there are their genre colleagues the Ramones with their `Teenage Lobotomy`, where they sing about the procedure itself as such, an interesting track is the not particularly well-known `I`d rather have a bottle in front of me` by Randy Henzlik, which talks about the preference of alcohol before the Frontal Lobotomy, and from our region the song by Partybreakers stands out - `Lobotomy`...

(Roger Mortis, 117)