Archaic medical procedure - Lobotomy


The documentary “The Lobotomist” by John Maggio and Barak Goodman feature a medical procedure gone awry and gone unnoticed until too late with thousands falling casualty to the practice of “ice pick” lobotomy. The trans-orbital lobotomy as referred by Dr. Walter J. Freeman lasted only fifteen minutes but the side effects outlived any gain from the simple procedure. In a compelling encounter with lobotomy, the 2008 release of the medical procedure highlights the plight of suffering mental patients in the hands of overzealous physician out for glory in the most awkward practices in medical history. On contrary, the supporters of Freeman argued on his efforts as in alleviating pain to that docile state where the family would take care of their loved ones. Events surrounding the World War II inspired Dr. Freeman to find a quick-fix solution to mentally disturbed patients from concentration camps, albeit with devastating long-term results. In describing the procedure, the documentary presents a desperate medical procedure in a dark medical moment in psychopharmacology that gifted Dr. Freeman a berth to explore his fancies.
In Lobotomist, it is clear the treatment, which Dr. Freeman termed as the last resort was not aimed at curing the patients but alleviating pains that the patient had and made the patient more docile to handle. Though at the time Freeman can be viewed as trying to find a cure to the violent patients, lobotomy was a destructive and crude brain-scrambling surgery, which was at times done without the consent of the family members. Thousands of mental patients were exposed to this inhuman surgery in between 1930s to 1960s. Though informed by necessity, the extreme procedure involved the insertion of “ice pick” through the upper eye sockets of mentally ill patients. However, it is the crude use of a hammer in driving the “ice pick” through brain matter in the frontal lobe that left fellow neurologists galled and distraught, fumbling for alternative methods in psychopharmacology. However, in critically looking at what Dr. Freeman did, in a way he offered some hope where there was none and the fellow physicians could not condemn him for there was lack of a better method at the time. The vegetated state after the surgery to the patients was baffling and distasteful given it disabled the frontal lobes of the brain through the insertion of “ice pick” through the upper eye sockets of mentally ill patients.
Given that patients got even worse after the surgery was bad news to the practice. Psychiatric patients could not live on without help after the surgery. Before mental patients could be left on their own but after the surgery they needed to be assisted in eating, going to the toilet and could not do other chores. With some of his patients dying on the operation table after the pick slipped sinking in the brain while he paused to take a photograph shows how unethical Freeman got with patients. Lobotomy was at its unrefined stage and Dr. Freeman used patients as specimen given he would switch hands and perform the operation with his left hand instead of the right hand. Performing the operation on young children showed that lobotomy could not be trusted because there were no limits, and this neurologist acted as small God. The procedure was a great failure not to mention inhuman practice that should not have been allowed without further neurological study.
In conclusion, the documentary “Lobotomist,” was inhuman procedure fueled by personal quest to physically taking out mental illness from the patient via trans-orbital lobotomy. The media appraise of Freeman procedure necessitated more of this disastrous surgery for it left more patients worse or dead. Though Freeman was an ambitious and brilliant surgeon, his practice brought more harm than gain to the psychiatric patients after all.

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