(31 reviews) Author: Jack El-Hai ISBN : 9780471232926 New from $8.46 Format: PDFThe 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. Although many patients did not benefit from the thousands of lobotomies Freeman performed, others believed their lobotomies changed them for the better. Drawing on a rich collection of documents Freeman left behind and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look into the life of this complex scientific genius and traces the physician's fascinating life and work.
- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 17, 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0471232920
- ISBN-13: 978-0471232926
- Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 6.3 x 9.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness PDF
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. Although many patients did not benefit from the thousands of lobotomies Freeman performed, others believed their lobotomies changed them for the better. Drawing on a rich collection of documents Freeman left behind and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look into the life of this complex scientific genius and traces the physician's fascinating life and work.
Walter Freeman almost singl-handedly created the craze for psychosurgery that was in vogue from the late 1930s until theBy W. H. Jamison, Jr.
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.
The author's attempt to humanize Dr. Walter Freeman does not jibe with the facts he presents. If Freeman truly believed in his heart that lobotomy was justifiable for the wide range of ailments he claimed (including alcoholism, depression) why then did he not seek this miraculous cure for his own wife, who apparently suffered from both as a result of his chronic infidelity?By Lidgemeister
Equally repellent are Freeman's colleagues in the medical establishment who kept their criticisms to themselves while the carnage continued for decades. Can you imagine (as in the case of Freeman's cohort Dr. Watts) seeing your colleague (who is not even a licensed surgeon) sticking an ice pick into the head of a patient in an office setting and doing no more than ending your partnership? This sounds more like organized crime than medicine.
The author makes much of Freeman's bizarre and obsessive followup of his patients as if it evidenced caring rather than a guilty conscience and a pathological need to be liked by his victims.
It takes an enormous leap of faith to believe Freeman's primary motivation was the good of his patients. Handing a camera to a colleague so he could record Freeman's ability to bore holes into the brains of his patients with both hands is not the mark of devoted physician.
Unfortunately, neither Freeman nor his accomplices were ever called to account in their lifetime. On the contrary, they were honored as distinguished gentleman of the medical profession. The medical establishment as a whole owes a belated apology to the thousands of victims and their families.
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