ESTONIAN ACADEMY
PUBLISHERS
eesti teaduste
akadeemia kirjastus
PUBLISHED
SINCE 1997
 
TRAMES cover
TRAMES. A Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences
ISSN 1736-7514 (Electronic)
ISSN 1406-0922 (Print)
Impact Factor (2022): 0.2
THE ICE PICK OF OBLIVION: MONIZ, FREEMAN AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOSURGERY; pp. 129–152
PDF | doi: 10.3176/tr.2009.2.03

Author
Marshall J. Getz
Abstract
Between 1935 and 1955, psychosurgery was regarded as standard treatment for schizophrenics. Egas Moniz and Walter Freeman had revived it, after earlier experiments led to questionable results. Perhaps the most radical of the biological approaches in psychiatry, it generated controversy after physicians operated on thousands of patients. Claims of its safety and precision met with some resistance, and many who were judged to be relieved had serious side effects. This study traces the role played by Moniz and Freeman in the development of this treatment.
References

Ahearn, Laura M. (2001) “Language and agency”. Annual Review of Anthropology 30, 1, 109–137. Alexander, Franz G. and Sheldon T. Selesnick (1966) The history of psychiatry: an evaluation of psychiatric thought and practice from prehistoric times to the present. New York: Harper & Row.

Arai, Yoshifumi, Yoshihiro Tsutsui, Yuichiro Shinmura, Tomoki Kosugi, Hirofumi Nishikage, and Junnosuke Yamamoto (2001) “Case report: an autopsy case of the schizophrenic 32 years after lobotomy”. Neuropathology 21,53–60.
doi:10.1046/j.1440-1789.2001.00363.x

Associated Press (2005) “Rosemary Kennedy, senator’s sister, 86, dies”. The New York Times, January 8. Retrieved June 11, 2008 from http://www.nytimes.com.

Bender, Morris B. (1973) “Neurology at Mount Sinai”. The Spectrum 3, unpaged. Retrieved March 13, 2005 from http://www.mssm.edu/neurology/introduction.shtml.

Braslow, Joel(1997) Mental ills and bodily cures: psychiatric treatment in the first half of the twentieth century. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Braslow, Joel (1999) “Where biopsychiatry came from: a short history of somatic therapies from 1900 to the 1950s”. Harvard Mental Health Letter August, 16, 5. Retrieved January 24, 2005 from EBSCOhost.

Chavkin, Samuel (1978) The mind stealers: psychosurgery and mind control. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Cleveland Clinic Foundation (2005) “Calming the chaos: rewiring the brain through neuro­modulation”. Cleveland Clinic Magazine Winter, 22–26.

Clifford, Graeme, director (1982) Frances. United States: Motion picture.

Dallek, Robert (2003) An unfinished life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Damasio, Antonio R (2000) Descartes’ error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: Quill (originally published 1994).

Diefenbach, Gretchen J., Donald Diefenbach, Alan Baumeister, and Mark West (1999) “Portrayal of lobotomy in the popular press: 1935–1960,” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 8, 60–69.
doi:10.1076/jhin.8.1.60.1766

Eisenberg, Leon (1998) “[Review of the book Last resort: Psychosurgery and the limits of medicine]”. The New England Journal of Medicine December 3, 339, 1719–1720.

El-Hai, Jack (2005) The lobotomist: a maverick medical genius and his tragic quest to rid the world of mental illness. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Farmer, Frances(1972) Will there really be a morning? An autobiography. New York: Putnam.

Fleischman, John (2002) Phineas Gage: a gruesome but true story about brain science.Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Freeman, Walter (1949a) “Mass action versus mosaic function of the frontal lobe”. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease 110, 413–418.
doi:10.1097/00005053-194911050-00006

Freeman, Walter (1949b) “Transorbital lobotomy”. American Journal of Psychiatry 105, 734–740.

Freeman, Walter (1950) “Psychosurgery”. American Journal of Psychiatry 106, 534–535.

Freeman, Walter (1957) “Frontal lobotomy 1936-1956: a follow-up study of 3000 patients from one to twenty years”. American Journal of Psychiatry 113,877–886.

Freeman, Walter (1967) “Multiple lobotomies”. American Journal of Psychiatry 123,1450–1452.

Freeman, Walter and James W. Watts (1950) Psychosurgery in the treatment of mental disorders and intractable pain. 2nd ed. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas.

González, Elizabeth Rasche (1980a) “Pain in men vs women”. Journal of the American Medical Association November 14, 244, 2147.

González, Elizabeth Rasche (1980b) “Psychosurgery: waiting to make a comeback?”. Journal of the American Medical Association November 21, 244, 2245–2247, 2250–2251.

González, Elizabeth Rasche (1980c) “Treating the brain by cingulotomy”. Journal of the American Medical Association November 14, 244, 2141–2143, 2146–2147.

Gooding, Diane C., William G. Iacono, and Daniel R. Hanson (1999) “Smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movement performance in a prefrontal leukotomy patient”. Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience 24,462–467. Retrieved January 24, 2005 from EBSCOhost.

Harvard Medical School (1996) “In memoriam: H. Thomas Ballantine, Jr.”. May 10. Retrieved February 18, 2005 from http://focus.hms.harvard.edu/1996/May10_1996/InMemoriam.

HUBIN (2002) “Fever and cramp therapies”. Human Brain Informatics, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet (Sweden). Retrieved April 28, 2005, from http://www.hubin.org/facts/history/1900_history/treatment/treatment_4_en.html.

Jankovic, Joseph (2001) “Tourette’s syndrome”. The New England Journal of Medicine October 18, 345, 1184–1192.

Kalinowsky, Lothar B., Hanns Hippius, and Helmfried E. Klein (1982) Biological treatments in psychiatry. New York: Grune and Stratton.

Kuehn, Bridget M. (2007) “Scientists probe deep brain stimulation: some promise for brain injury, psychiatric illness”. Journal of the American Medical Association November 21, 298, 2249–2251.

Lamberts, A. E. (2000) “A most unusual case: what made the caged bird sing?”. Cortlandt Forum August 25, 13,87. Retrieved January 24, 2005 from EBSCOhost.

Ljunggren, Bengt, George Bruyn, Ilo Käbin, and Michael Buchfelder (1998) “Ludvig Puusepp – founder of Estonian neurosurgery and Harvey Cushing’s Eastern Hemisphere counterpart”. Neurosurgery Quarterly 8, 2, 261–270.

Lowis, George W. and Alireza Minagar (2003) “The neglected research of Egas Moniz of internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion”. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 12,286–291.
doi:10.1076/jhin.12.3.286.16677

Macmillan, Margaret (2003) Paris 1919: six months that changed the world. New York, Random House Trade.

Menand, Louis (2008) “The Pound error (Books)”. The New Yorker June 9. Retrieved June 11, 2008 from http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/06/09.

Missouri Western Library (s.a.) Women writers along the rivers: Mary Frances Robinson (1892–1964). Retrieved April 10, 2005, from http://www.mwsc.edu/library/wwp/robinson.html.

Moniz, Egas (1994) “Prefrontal leucotomy in the treatment of mental disorders”. American Journal of Psychiatry (Sesquicentennial Supplement) 151,236–239 (original work published 1937).

Moore, Matthew T. (1949) “A new instrument for performing transorbital leucotomy”. American Journal of Psychiatry 105, 741, plates 9 and 10.

Oltman, Jane E., Bernard S. Brody, Samuel Friedman, and William F. Green (1949) “Frontal lobotomy: clinical experience with 107 cases in a state hospital”. American Journal of Psychiatry 105, 742–751.

Pressman, Jack D. (1998) Last resort: psychosurgery and the limits of medicine. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press.

RadiologyInfo (2008) “Gamma Knife”. Retrieved April 18, 2009 from http://www.radiologyinfo.org/ en/info.cfm?pg=gamma_knife.

Rainie, Harrison and Katia Hetter (1993) “The most lasting Kennedy legacy”. U.S. News & World Report November 15, 115,44. Retrieved January 24, 2005 from EBSCOhost.

Raudam, Ernst and Ain-Elmar Kaasik (1981) “Ludvig Puusepp 1875–1942”. Surgical Neurology 16, 2, 85–87.
doi:10.1016/0090-3019(81)90100-2

Raudam, Ernst and Ain-Elmar Kaasik (1985) “Ludvig Puusepp 1875–1942”. In Paul C. Bucy, ed. Neurosurgical giants: feet of clay and iron, 283–287. New York: Elsevier.

Rollin, H. R. (2000) “Psychiatry at 2000: a bird’s-eye view (opinion and debate)”. Psychiatric Bulletin 24,11–15. Retrieved February 18, 2005, from http://pb.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/ full/24/1/11.

Sabbatini, R. M. E. (1997–1998) “Manfred J. Sakel: a brief biography”. [Electronic version.] Brain & Mind Magazine December 1997–March 1998. Retrieved April 28, 2005, from http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n04/historia/sakel_i.htm.

Sakel, Manfred(1958) Schizophrenia. New York: Philosophical Library.

Schrader, Paul J. and Mary Frances Robinson (1945) “An evaluation of prefrontal lobotomy through ward behavior”. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 40,61–69.
doi:10.1037/h0054461

Specter, Michael (2001) “Rethinking the brain”. The New Yorker July 23, 42–53.

Strecker, Edward A. and Franklin G. Ebaugh (1928) Practical clinical psychiatry for students and practitioners. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: P Blakiston’s.

Valenstein, Elliot S. (1973) Brain control: a critical examination of brain stimulation and psycho­surgery. New York: Wiley-Interscience.

Volkmar, Fred R. (1999) “Lessons from secretin [Letter to the editor]”. The New England Journal of Medicine December 9, 341, 1842–1844.

Whitaker, Robert (2002) Mad in America: bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill. New York: Basic Books.

Wiarda, Howard J. (1977) Corporatism and development: the Portuguese experience. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Wilkinson, Harold A. (2009) “Cingulotomy [Letter to the editor]”. Journal of Neurosurgery 110, 607.
doi:10.3171/JNS.2009.110.3.0607

Wilmer, Clive (s.a.) “Pound’s life and career”. In Modern American poetry. Cary Nelson, ed. Retrieved June 11, 2008 from http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/bio.htm.

Yomo, Shoji, Yasser Arkha, Anne Donnet and Jean Régis (2009) “Gamma Knife surgery for glossopharyngeal neuralgia”. Journal of Neurosurgery 110, 3, 559–563.
doi:10.3171/2008.8.17641

Back to Issue