The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness

by Jack El-Hai

Book Overview

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman's documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471232920
• ISBN13: 9780471232926
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Lobotomies have not gone away....not completely.

The story of Dr. Walter Freeman, a psychiatrist - is as convoluted as the human brain. After learning about this maverick medical pioneer, I come to believe that Dr. Freeman was a man consumed with finding the ultimate cure for those stricken with debilitating mental illnessess. He witnessed the mental asylums of the 1930's - and these houses were wretched prisons where the truly lost souls of our planet were housed. Freeman could not bear to leave those patients with no hope / no chance of a treatment or way of getting better. Persons who were insande in the 30's, 40's and 50's were left with no treatment whatsoever. God help those who were schizophrenic, or obsessive-compulsive or agitatedly depressed or suicidal. In those early days, there was nothing other than confinement to treat the mentally ill. A lifetime of confinement...loneliness...despair. Dr. Freeman developed psychosurgery in the form of the frontal lobe, bilateral lobotomy procedure...he practiced on hundreds of patients along with his esteemed collegue, Dr. James Watts; a neurosurgeon. Together, they attacked severe mental incapacity with their frontal lobe-disconnecting surgeries....which was first performed with a leucotome inserted through the sides of the frontal lobes in the surgical suite....which then evolved into the use of a simple ice pick, which was inserted straight into the frontal lobes via the superior medial aspects of the orbits of the eyes! This approach sickened and repulsed all nurses assisting in the procedure, no matter how experienced they were. The method of anesthesia was delivering several jolts of electroshock therapy....which wasn't actually anesthetizing, it more promotoed amnesia and unconsciousness than actual sedation, but the manuver worked. Thus, this rather barbaric approach to lobotomies is what Dr. Freeman stuck to for the remainder of his less-than-illustrious medical career. This outraged many of the medical community; eventually even Dr. James Watts distanced himself from the practice, preferring the use of the sterile surgical environment. Other shock treatments that are explained in this novel are Metrazol, Insulin, and electro-shock treaments that helped to erradicate certain psychiatric diagnosies. All with very limited success. As outrageous as it may seem, the lobotomy was actually researched and found to be theraputic in about 33% of all cases. 19% of the time, it was a miserable failure and the remainder of the time, the patient simply traded one set of psychiatric problems for another set of equally disturbing problems. Amazingly, 33 % of patients were discharged from state hosptials and could function independently at home. Dr. Freeman understood the seriousness of the despondency that hung in the wards like a dark cloud in state institutions. He wanted to do something about it, and he also didn't mind if he were to become famous for discovering a cure. The life & career of Dr. Walter Freeman is a lesson in the human condi

A fascinating and horrifyingly true bit of medical history

Walter Freeman almost singl-handedly created the craze for psychosurgery that was in vogue from the late 1930s until the mid 1960s. This was a time when "psychosurgery" meant "lobotomy". While lobotomies were invented by Egas Moniz it was Freeman who advanced the research and tirelessly publicised it as the solution to almost all psychological ills. It would be all too easy for an author to write Freeman off as an uncaring villain of the first order, a Josef Mengele like figure who mutilated the brains of his victims/patients in an attempt to make them conform to societal norms by amputating their personalities. However Jack El Hai presents Freeman as a man desperate to improve the lives of his patients, a self-promoting man, but nonetheless someone who cared. It is this portrayal by El Hai that makes Freeman an even more horrible character. When El Hai describes how Freeman almost obsessively kept in touch with his patients you have to contrast this caring image with that of Freeman performing lobotomies in his office with an ice-pick and then sending the patients home in a taxi. Freeman doesn't come off as a two-dimensional monster, instead he is revealed to be an all to real three-dimensional, deeply and desperately flawed man. El Hai avoids scrutinizing larger questions such as to what degree lobotomy was used as an instrument of societal control of troublesome individuals, but others have speeculated on that question, instead he provides new englightenment on that issue by examining Walter Freeman and his times.

More Than a Biography

I'm not usually a fan of biographies, but I was persuaded to read this one because a friend who's well aware of my preference for fiction recommended it as "just a great story." And that it is. Dr. Walter Freeman, the godfather of the lobotomy, is as intriguing a character as any of the noble but flawed doctor/scientist heroes of classical literature. Driven by ambition and a desire to accomplish great things for humanity, as well as for himself, he scaled the heights of his profession only to be brought low by arrogance and pride. Jack El-Hai tells Freeman's story with fairness, grace and a novelist's understanding of character and human frailty. I recommend this fine book not only to readers interested in the subject but to anyone who enjoys, as my friend suggested, "a great story."

medicine is an art, not a science

Jack El Hai has produced a masterful,gripping account of the crude but well-intentioned efforts of a medical genius to find a cure for mental illness. By so doing, he describes the bias and barriers confronting Walter Freeman's somewhat bizarre forays into an uncharted medical area and the man himself, a talented, egotistical individual who braved the calumny of the medical profession. A must read

The mind of a Lobotomist

Jack El-Hai takes us into the mind of one of America's most complex medical personalities. The Lobotomist explores the life and work of Dr. Walter Freeman who performed thousands of "ice-pick lobotomies" during the 40s and 50s as a way to treat mental illness. Some saw Freeman as a savior with a miracle cure, others saw him as a cold-blooded egomaniac... Jack El-Hai presents him as a tragic and complex soul by giving us an intimate look into his life and career. A brilliant read...especially because it provides such a vivid snapshot of a terrible chapter in medical history!