Lobotomy: The Ice Pick, the Nobel Prize, and the Doctor Who Wouldn't Stop
Dr. Henry A. Cotton (1869–1933), American Psychiatrist and medical director at the NJ (woot!) State Hospital at Trenton. Because he believed that major mental illnesses were caused by infections in the body, he removed teeth, tonsils, colons, gallbladders, and reproductive organs - even though his patient mortality rates were up to 30%!
Rosemary Kennedy prior to being lobotomized.
The lobotomy that was supposed to help Rosemary left her profoundly disabled; she lived out the rest of her life in an institution.
Walter Freeman in his lobotomobile.
The “evolution” of instruments with which Freeman scraped patients’ brains.
Howard Dully was just 12 years old when Freeman lobotomized him.
He went into the hospital thinking he was having tests done, and came out with two black eyes and a severely altered brain.
Dully with his father, he put the pieces together of his life story decades later.
Check out the fascinating autobiographical audiobook HERE
EP. 17
Lobotomy: The Ice Pick, the Nobel Prize, and the Doctor Who Wouldn't Stop
A doctor with an ice pick, a Nobel Prize, and thousands of altered lives. In this episode, we explore the desperate conditions that made lobotomy seem like a miracle, the doctors who championed it, and how Walter Freeman turned a radical brain surgery into one of the most infamous treatments in psychiatric history.
Click HERE to listen to the full episode:
