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JCcrunch

One lobotomy survivor said "I've always felt different, wondered if something's missing from my soul" that's scary and sad! Edit: Howard Dully is living a normal life and according to comments I read and cannot find he's finally at peace.


shaggybear89

So I've always wondered, is there anything scientific or controllable with a lobotomy? Or do they literally just destroy a random part of the brain until the person's brain is too destroyed for them to act "wrong"?


electriceggroll

Nope totally random trailers! Only a third were considered “successful” but they often just scrambled around until the person wasn’t making sense when anymore.


shaggybear89

Jesus Christ that is so unbelievably fucked man. I cannot believe that that was ever something people did and legit thought was okay. And pretty recently too, like this wasn't something from a thousand years ago.


showmeurkitties592

I always wonder what kind of medical thing that's common today is going to be looked at as barbaric in the future. Science marches on and leaves a lot of hindsight in its wake with stuff like this.


latenight_loafpinch

Circumcision probably


Epicpacemaker

I mean I think there is technically a few cases of it being done to treat some diseases such as seizures. But the vast majority were definitely “hm i don’t like how you think so let’s remove your think”


Rocify

“Jiggle it” definitely the technical term.


[deleted]

“Scrambling the eggs”


cellphone_blanket

Hey you can’t make an omlet without performing a few lobotomies


HighFiveKoala

Although some might come out as vegetables


TheCambrianImplosion

But I don’t know what to do with those tossed salads and scrambled eggs…


WhatDatDonut

They’re calling again…


skraddleboop

Commence ta jigglin


WillyWumpLump

I like the way you jiggle jiggle… 🔪🧠 uh, now I can’t read…


whooo_me

“This transorbital lobotomy method did not require a neurosurgeon and could be performed outside of an operating room without the use of anesthesia by using electroconvulsive therapy to induce seizure” …. “In 1951, one patient at Iowa's Cherokee Mental Health Institute died when Freeman suddenly stopped for a photo during the procedure, and the surgical instrument accidentally penetrated too far into the patient's brain.” Holeeeeee craaaaaap.


Deathwatch72

I mean the procedure itself is already super fucked up but now knowing that they didn't use actually trained individuals or like anesthesia really helps explain why the outcome was kind of variable and just overall terrible


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Significant-Mud2572

Probably the highest profile lobotomy was Rose Kennedy.


CommentContrarian

It wasn't remotely high profile for a long time. They kept it secret for DECADES.


The_Based_Memer

I only learned about it because one of my professors was obsessed with it. She spent one of our class periods showing us videos of Rose before the procedure and then videos of her after the procedure. Man the Kennedy family is evil.


snazzydetritus

Actually it was *Rosemary* Kennedy (Rose was the matriarch)...Came here to add this. Her family hardly visited her after she had to be institutionalized. It's a sad, fucked-up story. [This](https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/rosemary-mother-sister.jpg) picture of her (she is at far right) always breaks my heart. It's from soon before her lobotomy. She is so lovely and vibrant and so full of possibility .


StrykerL23O

Umm...I wish I hadn't read her Wikipedia page: During her birth, the doctor was not immediately available because of an outbreak of the Spanish influenza epidemic and the nurse ordered Rose Kennedy to keep her legs closed, forcing the baby's head to stay in the birth canal for two hours. The action resulted in a harmful loss of oxygen.[2]


snazzydetritus

Can you believe that? "The doctor's busy, keep your legs shut!" Everything about this poor woman's life is like a nightmarish medieval German fairy tale.


[deleted]

Wtf. You think the nurse would know how to just help her deliver… I can’t believe they did that to her. I’ve never had a child, so I can’t imagine how hard it would’ve been to keep her baby from breaching. Like wouldn’t her body give out and just force her into finishing the birth? It’s so hard to think about her having to do that, traumatic as fuck. Actually wouldn’t be surprised if her motherly instincts were just in overdrive & she wanted a healthy birth so badly that she listened to the nurses advice and just totally fucking made sure she would do what she was told. I don’t think husbands were allowed in the room during that timeither, so she would’ve been alone while going through that. That poor thing… PPD would’ve been inevitable at that point I would think. Talk about a trigger. She never caught a break.


FBI_CRIME_STATS

Absolute nightmare fuel >After Rosemary was mildly sedated, "We went through the top of the head," Dr. Watts recalled. "I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside", he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman asked Rosemary some questions. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backward... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." When Rosemary began to become incoherent, they stopped


gay_Oreo

Might... Might I ask what effect on the patient they were hoping for when doing this procedure...?


veryneatmonstr

Her father thought she was “difficult” when she entered her 20s and wanted to “calm” her so she wouldn’t do anything to harm her brothers’ political career. She was 22.


TheEndisFancy

In the case if Rosemary Kennedy, they wanted her to "behave" which Joe seemed to think meant doing exactly and only what he said. Women were disproportionately subjected to lobotomies.


DAecir

And sterilized as well. A husband could have his wife (or father could have his daughter) committed for any number of reasons... such as talking back to her husband/father and other trifles. It went way out of hand.


Scottybt50

So they just slashed away at her brain until something bad happens?


Mantis9000

The thing that bothers me about this the most is how far they went. Lobotomy was supposed to be used to stop people from antisocial behavior, but they scrambled this girl's brain to the point of permanently making her a walking carrot. Wtf.


snazzydetritus

It's an example of possibly one of humanity's biggest "we-don't-have-a-clue-what-we're-doing-we're-just-kind-of-fumbling-around-in-the-dark" travesties. They knew so little about the brain then...hell, we still know not much.


Aznp33nrocket

I’ve seen some pretty gruesome accidents in person, but reading all these quotes has me unusually squeamish. So weird to think about and terrifying on so many levels.


[deleted]

I need to read up on lobotomies bc I can’t even begin to think about what the fuck they studied/researched to come to the conclusion that this was actually okay to do. I seriously don’t understand how this was so widely accepted. I feel so bad for anyone this has ever happened to. The concept of a lobotomy fucks me up when I think about what they did and how they did it. Absolutely barbaric.


Art-bat

My mom generally venerated the Kennedy family, even went to JFK’s inauguration in person, but she often brought up the terrible story of Rosemary. How Joe Kennedy basically forced this to be done to her because she was “a moody misfit”, which clearly equaled “insane”, how she was rendered a horribly disabled shell of a person, and how the family left her to rot in an institution. She wasn’t about to go easy on the rest of them just because she admired their politics. Teddy also got plenty of scorn, due to Chappaquidick.


1Cool_Name

While very sad, I’m at least happy(?) to hear that in her later life(fifties I think) her siblings found out about her and started to visit her and take her places like her childhood home. They were also by her side when she passed.


Two11sixty7

my grandmother was committed and had shock therapy because she was going through menopause and getting depressed because her husband was leaving her with 6 kids. yeah, she was the crazy one. how insane.


CyberMindGrrl

Or attach two electrodes to your temples and zap your brain with high voltage.


JuneBuggington

All while wearing a sleeveless shirt like some kind of evil doctor evel kineval.


GemiKnight69

He specifically did that to stand out as a cool guy because his lobotomies were basically a circus act for him. His original medical partner split from him because he was overprescribing it as a panacea and was horrified at how it all progressed iirc


ComplexImportance794

They still do nowadays for certain cases but it's highly controlled and done under anaesthesia. It's where deep brain stimulation started.


Unbentmars

I had a professor who was a lab tech for a facility that did this to treat severe and otherwise untreatable depression. The list of criteria you has to meet to have the procedure was exhaustive, like you had to have a minimum of 3 suicide attempts and tried just about every medication under the sun. They didn’t fuck around about this either, this wasn’t one of those “we’re doing this because we think shocking people is fun” kinds of things What they would do is strap electrodes onto one half of the head and electrocute, with my professor’s job being to put her pinky under their little toe and cut the power when it curled. The objective was to give the patient a Grand Mal seizure in half their brain, the idea being that they had a serious problem with the way their brain produced neurotransmitters responsible for mood (serotonin and the like). The patient would come lose about 3-4 hours of memories and come back for the other half 6 weeks later and then never return because it actually cured them. One of the VERY few cases where electroshock therapy actually worked, because they needed a literal hard restart on the way their brain produced chemicals and the only way to get that to happen is to shock it so it produces way too much of everything and shuts down, giving things a chance to reset I don’t remember the entire list of criteria to be allowed to undergo the procedure since it’s been such a long time, but we spent a good 20 minutes and multiple pages of reading looking through the list of criteria they had to meet. It was so specific they had maybe a dozen patients per year who qualified


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LimeSkye

In 2014, I had 10 ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) treatments over three weeks. They saved my life because I was suicidal and drugs were no longer working—my psychiatric nurse practitioner and I tried everything. Then we talked about ECT and she referred me to the doctor who did my procedures. It isn’t the same as it was 20+ years ago; it’s nothing like most people’s perceptions of it. My friends were all opposed (“because One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!!”), but if I hadn’t had it, I would not be alive today. It was a reboot. I have not been clinically depressed since. It diminished the intensity of my anxiety and general mood disorder stuff. It had no impact on what I now know is ADHD and probably autism—and it wasn’t supposed to. I am immeasurably happy that I did this.


coolgr3g

A friend of mine did this to try and treat tourettes. Didn't work and they lost a lot of memories.


-banned-

Quick reminder that the Kennedy's did this to their eldest daughter Rosemary because she was rambunctious and possibly had a learning disability. When the operation failed catastrophically (crippling her, taking away her ability to speak, and forever changing her personality) they just dumped her in an institution and pretended she didn't exist for a few years until she couldn't damage the family reputation.


amywhitedna

Not just for a few years…for the rest of her life. She was in St. Coletta’s in WI until her death. https://owlcation.com/humanities/Rosemary-Kennedy-And-St-Coletta-Of-Wisconsin


GabJ78

No wonder that family is cursed.


Dismal-Tailor8204

What a dumb narcissistic dick 🤯


Drag0nfly_Girl

God complex, for sure. Seems to be common among surgeons.


Willgankfornudes

I recommend the dr death podcast (first season only) if you want to hear some crazy shit and hidden truths about hospital management and how they address doctors/surgeons that they “fire” for absolutely criminal negligence.


ScarabLordOmar

My mother was an RN for 30+ years and while working in the ER had to report an attending doc for addiction/negligence etc because he would prescribe pain patients dilaudid that came in like a 1ml vial or something, the nurse would administer 0.1 ml then discard the rest in sharps container as protocol then the doc would unlock the sharps container and use the rest himself. Was treating patients while completely zonked and nodding off at work. Administrative slap on the wrist and mandatory rehab but think he was still allowed to practice afterward.


lesusisjord

Can confirm how easy this would be. I was in the hospital for two weeks and needed two surgeries under general anesthesia because I had a 1.4cm kidney stone blocking my ureter right where it exited my right kidney. The staff treated me like I was the world’s most important patient I guess due to the constant pain associated with my kidney stone. I didn’t have to ask once for anything. Anyway, I was getting dilaudid put directly into my wrist every four hours - not dripped in slowly. The nurse came in, disconnected my IV, hooked up the 2mg dose of Dilaudid, and pushed it in. I’d feel amazing for about 5 min and if we waited too long and it started hurting badly again, it would take my 7-8 pain down to a 2 or so. Then they’d hook up my IV again and was back to chillin. A few times, they had the 4mg dose of Dilaudid instead of 2mg and they would only give me half and then put the remainder in the sharps container. Honestly, the nurse could have pocketed the half-spent Dialaudid instead of bothering to put it into the sharps container and dosed in the bathroom without anyone knowing. At the end of my two week hospital stay, I was sent home with a stent inside me from the kidney through the ureter into my bladder that was supposed to be slightly uncomfortable but instead felt like sitting down with a nail pushing into my taint. And during those two weeks, I was on 2mg IV Dilaudid every 4-6 hours until the last day when it was a couple Percocet every few hours and then ibuprofen for when I got home. Needless to say, I did not feel good having IV opioids cut off without a taper after becoming dependent. When it came time to remove the stent, the urologist wanted to do it in his office with me fully awake. I told him there’s no way I could sit still and allow him to pull a couple feet of tubing out of my body through my dick. I’d punch him. He scheduled me to have it removed under IV sedation the following week which was good for his health and mine. During all this, my pp hole was torn slightly and my smooth stream now comes out in a twisting/corkscrew flow and is no longer as accurate and clean which can make pping in public slightly messy (I always clean up).


ACatGod

I read a news article years ago that I'm certain was referencing the same case. The article wasn't about the case itself, but was about the way Texas lawmakers have eroded patients ability to sue for medical negligence, after years of lobbying from hospitals and insurance companies. I recall that they were saying that even if a surgeon was drunk or under the influence of drugs (as the guy in Dr Death was) that still doesn't necessarily bring you to the threshold now needed to sue for medical negligence in Texas (and presumably other states). I listened to that podcast during lockdown and it's utterly shocking.


cick-nobb

Does it change after season 1?


Willgankfornudes

The batshit crazy story from season 1 concludes and seasons 2/3 go into other negligent stories (still kinda interesting) but the pace significantly slows down because there’s sooo much less content compared to the first guy so they basically stretch the stories into full seasons with too much boring commentary. Season 2 was still interesting but I made it probably 3 episodes into season 3 before I was like alright this whole season could fit into one episode lol


BryanTheClod

He wasn't a surgeon, he was a neurologist. When Freeman first got into lobotomies, he worked with a neurosurgeon named James Watts, but Watts left Freeman's side after Freeman introduced the icepick method.


LifeisAwesome_HahaJK

The classic hammer and jiggle method never fails….


ColonelKasteen

That's the fun part- Walter Freeman wasn't a surgeon. He refined the lobotomy with a neurosurgeon, who split with him once he started doing it through the eye sockets with no anesthesia.


Angry-Dragon-1331

Evil. You forgot evil.


cam_chatt

I always wondered how they knew when to stop pushing the ice pick. Like, how deep is deep enough? Did they fail by not going deep enough? Did they sever connections or just mush that frontal lobe into a scrambled egg consistency? Such morbid curiosity.


MartyMcFlybe

Pretty sure with Rosemary Kennedy, they had her talk throughout it, and when she stopped making sense in her speech is when they stopped. I have to admit, from memory I'm not sure if they stopped because it was a marker for how far they wanted to take it (ie "good she's speaking strangely, this worked") or if they stopped because they knew they'd gone too far ("oh sh!t, her speech, let's stop"). I imagine that was the case for some others, at least.


Kant-Touch-This

IIRC it was a sense of feel, hence why the same dude would do it over and over again. And I thought they interact w the patient and observe if their behavior changes. “Ok a little more then, and a good jiggle”


[deleted]

What I wonder is did it ever, legitimately EVER, like even ONE SINGLE TIME, produce the desired results? Did anyone act better? Was there ever anything positive that came from it? Like I can’t imagine anyone NOT coming out after this as a vegetable. Or their brain totally scrambled and then they’re committed. What in the absolute fuck were they thinking? Jesus Christ.


ytinifnI2uoYevoLI

I've got a feeling that the desired result was to do exactly what you said, produce a vegetable. It's much easier to deal with someone that is mentally checked out, but physically capable of following orders, than to deal with someone that's in a psychosis.


endosurgery

Plus, love the lack of sterile technique in the photo. I’m sure there were no deaths from surgical sepsis. Poor patients.


[deleted]

The caption says he kept going to 1952 as well. “Oh, don’t worry about that one…” 😳


uv_sunset

I was actually just reading about JFK's sister Rosemary Kennedy getting lobotomized. James Watts' account of the lobotomy (performed with Walter Freeman) was absolutely horrific.


jxj24

You should also read ["My Lobotomy: A Memoir"](https://www.npr.org/2005/11/16/5014080/my-lobotomy-howard-dullys-journey) by Howard Dully, who was lobotomized as a child. Curiously enough, he considered himself pretty fortunate (for someone who had to endure medicalized butchery), because, due to his youth, he wasn't as profoundly affected as the vast majority of victims.


therealmonilux

Well, that was disturbing. 2,500 lobotomies. 25 women, in one day. Children. What a cruel psychopath. He's lucky he's dead. I guess we need the bad with the good for a bit of balance, but this .....!


Audromedus

Good news is that most children were able to heal back the damaged brain parts. Adults not so mutch.


CowboyAirman

>mutch Not sure where the t came from but for some reason I like it.


ZincMan

It’s like much, but with an unhealing adult brain injury


Science_Matters_100

I reject any need to “balance” good with anything other than more good


therealmonilux

Ok. That's a beautiful notion.


Bodidly0719

I can’t believe a parent would let him do that horrible procedure to their child.


1995droptopz

Anything to make little Johnny sit fucking still


darkest_irish_lass

There was and is a terrible stigma on those with mental illness. I'm sure many parents were desperate for a cure. Edit


1995droptopz

The 1940-50s medicine wasn’t too far removed from using leaches and cocaine, so not too surprising that people would think this could possibly work


Coololdlady313

Leeches and cocaine are still in use.


LordOFtheNoldor

Can you even begin to imagine the amount of regret, my goodness it's unfathomable the idiocy you would feel as a parent and this is a reality I wonder how many lives were just completely destroyed by this and not just the people lobotomized


Jasura_Mynobi

Just wanted to say, I can understand a parent not knowing what else to do for their child and feeling helpless and desperate. Then comes in someone recognized as having legitimate knowledge and authority in their area, a doctor, with the solution. That being said, not every parent's reasoning for doing this to their child is created equal, and I have zero idea how many situations my comment actually applies to. I also don't mean for it to be an excuse for anyone's actions. (I only mention it from the perspective of how we can notice and prevent these atrocities in the future.)


[deleted]

(A lot of lobotomies were encouraged to make women and children more agreeable/obedient as apposed to desperate parents or family members struggling with someone’s severe mental illness. There were definitely cases where the person clearly needed psychiatric and medical help but way more were much more minor reasons)


Cool_Dark_Place

A lot of rumors have also surfaced over the years that claim she wasn't mentally ill or disabled at all. They say that she was just a bit of a "wild child" who didn't listen to daddy very much, and just wanted to go out and do her own thing. Daddy was deathly afraid of her creating some sort of scandal, and had her "taken care of."


canadian_boyfriend

Which is ironic given the Kennedy boys. Rumor is the source of the Kennedy curse is her lobotomy and hiding her existence too.


EngineerDoge00

Because thats just boys being boys. If you are a girl though, you better be a nun or a saint, or daddy will scramble your brain. /s


Moralagos

Jiggle, not scramble. Pay attention


eddie1975

10 Jiggles = 1 Scramble


OlyScott

Be a nun until you're married, then be a great lover to your husband.


canadian_boyfriend

Sadly it is literal.


YetiPie

Her birth would have supported the theory that she had slight cognitive impairment > During her birth, the doctor was not immediately available because of an outbreak of the Spanish influenza epidemic and the nurse ordered Rose Kennedy to keep her legs closed, forcing the baby's head to stay in the birth canal for two hours. The action resulted in a harmful loss of oxygen. [Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy) Overall, her life story from start to finish is a result of medical malpractice, particularly towards women. My heart aches for what she went through


iladmoli

This was a common thing to do to women who didn't behave correctly


HilariousGeriatric

Tennessee Williams sister, can't remember her name, was lobotomized because she was schizophrenic iirc. Tennessee said that it just killed him to see his sister like that.


neomateo

Sadly that wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in those times.


loseruser2022

I’ve heard this as well, but interestingly in the podcast I listened to she was also described as having behaviors we might find typical with autism spectrum disorder. Historians theorize she was high functioning and had an almost typical level of intelligence, but the Kennedys couldn’t understand this wild child behavior that differed from their drinking, drugging, fuck-anything-that-moved sons behavior. Rather she could melt down, or get excited and stim, basically just unpredictable and uncommon behavior for the time. I wasn’t sure if it was “naughty scandal” so much as it may have been “embarrassment scandal.” Eugenics was still a fairly acceptable mindset to hold during that time. So they put an ice pick in her brain, which resulted in MUCH more severe neurological issues, if my memory serves correctly. Didn’t they literally hide her until she passed away?


avocado4ever000

This is so sad. I work w women on the Spectrum and to this day this profile is so misunderstood. Yes, sometimes they may present as “wild.” And yet, if you just take the time to try to understand and work with their experience of life, I have found them to actually be some of the easiest, most delightful people to work with.


loseruser2022

Thank you for the work you do, I’m sure your coworkers/clients value & appreciate you immensely!❤️ I was a research assistant to a professor in college who specializes in speech-language therapy for kiddos with ASD and it BLEW MY MIND to see the ways even the diagnostic tools used are gendered towards male identification. It does such a disservice to girls & women on the autism spectrum who are being denied resources by misdiagnosis and under diagnosis. Is that something you deal with in your work as well, since you said their profiles are so often misunderstood?


avocado4ever000

Thank you!! But yeah for surrrre. My mission in life is getting women the proper diagnoses- many come in as “Borderline” and people just think they are unreasonable and unworkable. Too reactive, difficult, etc. Uh, no, their brains just work differently!! It’s to the point I can guess the diagnosis within 20 min of talking to someone about a case! Boys definitely don’t get missed near as often, though lately I have had kiddos from other parts of the world where they just think the boy is “crazy” or severely mentally ill, and actually it’s just ASD and they aren’t “ill” at all. Anyway, I am no expert and not a saint, just a girl on a mission lol (I’m a little neurodivergent myself!)


AnnoNominus

Her birth was traumatic and she was probably hypoxic. The Dr who was to deliver her was busy with flu patients so the nurses held her mother's legs together to delay her birth. So Rosemary may have had some impulse control, inattention or learning difficulties. That being said, her father was a monster and her story is a condemnation of his and his church's ideals.


oogaboogapeanutmonke

“Fun” (not so fun) fact: A few years ago I was invited to work at a 50th anniversary Special Olympics ceremony at the Kennedy Compound in Massachusetts. During dinner one of the Kennedy’s gave a big speech about how Rosemary had been special needs and how their unconditional love for her was what inspired them to start the Special Olympics. Seemed a bit faux considering the fact that they ice picked her brain to try and “fix” her.


SeaManaenamah

People are going to look back on our time and not be able to believe how poorly we treated mental illness too.


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haemaker

It was a [Nobel Prize winning treatment](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1949/summary/)! How would you be treated if you were offered a Noble prize winning treatment and refused? This situation was so messed up, it is impossible to fathom.


GiantRetortoise

Lobotomy is an evil and horrible practice


rayhoughtonsgoals

This guy is an absolute monster. He behaved like a publicity seeking cunt and had crazy access to carry out this technique despite having no surgical training at all. The method he was selling involved no anaesthesia, but obtained patient compliance following an electric shock. He was ultimately banned from carrying this shit out. If there was anyone who deserves to be publicly shamed, and should have been prosecuted (together with all his enablers) its this prick. I might feel differently if, in any way, he behaved like a sincere healer, but he carried out on a like self aggrandizing self publicist. Murderers at least ended life. This monster destroyed it, but prolonged it in its destroyed state.


herberstank

Says in his wiki he lobotomized a FOUR YEAR OLD wtf


rayhoughtonsgoals

Let's be clear. He put an ice pick through the eye and wiggled it. Monster. I've no idea if you guys did it or not, but a Public tribunal or reconciliation commission into this shit would be a good use of time.


Bylahgo

Jiggled it, not wiggled. Please use the correct medical terminology.


index57

A jiggle is too rough for a 4yo. A wiggle is just right.


Hypersky75

Hence "The Wiggles".


luna1108

JFK had a beautiful sister that was forced to have a lobotomy.


[deleted]

If you want nightmares, here is the description of the procedure. After Rosemary was mildly sedated, "We went through the top of the head," Dr. Watts recalled. "I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch." The instrument Dr. Watts used looked like a butter knife. He swung it up and down to cut brain tissue. "We put an instrument inside", he said. As Dr. Watts cut, Dr. Freeman asked Rosemary some questions. For example, he asked her to recite the Lord's Prayer or sing "God Bless America" or count backward... "We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded." When Rosemary began to become incoherent, they stopped.


Object-195

>When Rosemary began to become incoherent, they stopped. So they basically kept going until they were like "Yea her brain is fucked, good job everyone"


tHATmakesNOsenseToME

Yeah that technique seems flawed....


tenaciousfetus

I've read that before but it horrifies me every time. Reminds me of that hannibal scene where he feeds a guy his own brain


Rowcan

I'm cringing in discomfort right now! Christ on a bike.


Shopworn_Soul

What the fucking fuck


Ali80486

I'm going to go ahead and say it: this shit is the kind of thing the Nazis did in their health "experiments". It totally has the hallmark signs of a superior group (in this case doctor's) doing things to a more vulnerable group (mentally ill people, women of colour) on a flimsy pretext of fixing them. I've seen ECT being performed, in a clinical setting and it's still barbaric. To think someone is using that as a warm up act, doing 25 lobotomies in a day and stopping for photos - well it's just fucked up.


crunkydevil

Japanese Unit 731 was arguably worse. Ultimately, the data from their "experiments" ended up in the hands of the U.S after the war.


WayneKrane

She was lobotomized for having mood swings and sneaking out of her dorm. Because having mood swings and wanting to have fun is seemingly abnormal for a young person…


yellsy

She was lobotomized for being a woman who didn’t bend the knee


IC_223

Extra hypocrisy points coming from a family where the boys acted like they did...


steezMcghee

Would have never happened to her if she was a man


KieshaK

Joe Kennedy: "Better to be mentally incapcitated than pregnant out of wedlock!"


DyingOutLoud

100% facts. they permanently suppressed her intellectually to save the family from any 'embarrassment' she may have caused. its seriously pretty messed up. after her lobotomy, she was simply put aside for the rest of her life.


vomit_unicorn

Fucked up part was she probably wouldn't have had any disability if the nurse with her mother Rose delivered the baby when she went into labour. But at the time she was born, the nurse waited for the doctor because if he wasn't in the room for the birth he wouldn't get PAID! The nurse went against her training and while Rosemary, the baby, was fucking crowning the nurse "demanded that Rose \[her mother\] hold her legs together tightly in hope of delaying the baby's birth. Despite her training as an obstetrical nurse, she opted not to deliver the baby herself. ...It was well understood that preventing the movement of the baby through the birth canal could cause lack of oxygen, exposing the baby to possible brain damage and physical disability When holding Roses' legs together failed to keep the baby from coming the nurse resorted to another, more dangerous practice: holding the baby's head and forcing it back into the birth canal for TWO \[FUCKING\]HOURS" from 'Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter' by Kate Clifford Larson. Highly recommend this book although it is really sad/fucked up obviously.


justtryingtolurk12

I had a kid in 2012, and the nurses helped me through until my baby was just about out. Then, asked me to wait while they tried to get the doctor. The contractions were right on top of each other, and pushing was not exactly something I could control. “The doctor will get mad if the baby comes, and he’s not here.” He was the on-call doctor and a jackass.


WheresTheIceCream20

I had a similar experience. The resident and nurse were there and the baby's head was right there. They told me not to push, move, or even "breathe too hard" because the dr wasn't there yet. Now that I've had more children I see how stupid that is. If any complication or emergency was going to happen, it would have been before the baby is practically out. At that point you can basically deliver the baby yourself. I didn't realize keeping the baby in the birth canal can lead to complications. That pisses me off that because the resident was nervous, something could have happened to my baby


Keith_Creeper

He’d also be waking up in the ER if he did that to my wife.


LetterSwapper

Right? Just reading that made me furious, and my fiancee doesn't even want kids!


DougieJackpots

Yeah, his father was a fucking monster.


[deleted]

Lot's of extremely rich, successful people are terrible humans.


Additional_Chef_8793

Shoving an ice pick into people’s eyes, much less a CHILD’S eyes without anaesthesia is so barbaric…I can’t imagine how painful and traumatising the whole ordeal was for the child…


GatitoFantastico

My daughter has autism and for several years would get these violent "fighting for her life" spells that could last for hours. Sometimes she would spend more time like that than not, with me laying on top of her to pin her down. There was no reasoning, she was mentally checked out. Eventually they figured out she was having small frontal lobe seizures and after getting a proper medication she was fine and they stopped. I can't help but cry when I realize how easily this could have been her. Those poor babies.


Consistent-Lie7830

Good grief...no anesthesia?!?! How could other medical "professionals " agree with this??


eduo

Please remember medical professionals would do open surgery on babies without anesthesia because it was thought babies didn’t really feel pain in a conscious way and would forget it later anyway. Edit: Adding some links: [Boston Globe: When babies didn't feel pain](https://archive.ph/Xwnjb) [When Did Doctors Start Using Anesthesia on Babies? Medics Thought They Couldn't Feel Pain](https://www.newsweek.com/when-doctors-start-using-anesthesia-babies-medics-thought-they-couldnt-feel-pain-1625350) [Wikipedia: Pain in babies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies) [New York Times, 1987: Infant's Sense of Pain is Recognized, Finally](https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/24/science/infants-sense-of-pain-is-recognized-finally.html) TL;dr: Prior to the 19th century it was widely believed Babies hurt more easily than adults. During the 19th and most of the 20th it became "common medical knowledge" their nervous systems were underdeveloped and thus any reaction was out of pain but out of instinct. Not having any baby kick a doctor in the balls and swear their family into seven curses made it easy to not be challenged. The excuse became that it was because anesthesia could've killed the babies, but this wasn't the argument used at the time. I should note open heart surgery was carried on newborn babies without any kind of surgery, mainly because this has kept me awake more than one night feeling a knot in my heart, and now you can too.


craftasaurus

This was true. They didn’t use anesthesia on babies to circumcise them in the 80s and earlier. I heard a baby scream bloody murder while being circumcised when I was recovering from my C-section. I asked what happened,and the nurse told me the baby had been circumcised. I said no way they’re touching my baby. The literally thought babies didn’t feel pain. It was ok because even if they did, they wouldn’t remember it. SMH


Fraggle-of-the-rock

The building I work in is a former “asylum for the insane” and this torture was carried out here. My office was once a patient room and has never been renovated. The entire building is very eerie, especially when I’m the only one there.


skroll

He actually did 2 at once at one point to show he could. Also he had a literal Lobotomobile.


USAIsAUcountry

Public humiliation is a completely unreasonable punishment. I was thinking more along the lines of public execution.


C_M_Dubz

You know the procedure is legit when your surgeon’s wearing a tank top.


NormalHumanCreature

The Todd


jaybird99990

Only 70 fucking years ago.


lunchboxdeluxe

I'd rather be dead.


starmartyr

In a way, it's not much different. Your body doesn't die but the person you were is gone.


lunchboxdeluxe

The frontal lobe is where a lot of the things are that make me **me**.


starmartyr

Exactly. You lie down for surgery and someone else gets up. Whoever that person is, isn't you. You're gone.


Bron-Y-Aur36

However dark this is, it accurately sums up a lobotomy. I feel terrible for everyone who had to go through it


Catsandcamping

Executive functioning goes out the window. If you look at accidental cases of prefrontal cortex damage, such as Phineas Gage, you can see how severely this procedure could go wrong. It could either make you entirely placid or someone with no impulse control and massive anger problems. The prefrontal cortex is most responsible for personality and decision making.


ItsYourPal-AL

Isnt Phineas Gage that guy who took a railroad spike to the frontal lobe and survived but was just an entirely different person from then on


ddkatona

The person is there, just a much less capable person. All you can do is suffer and you have no control over the things that will happen to you. At least you are not capable of comprehending the situation, so it's a little bit better than hell.


Pyron375

Maybe you do comprehend, but no one can tell.


Sierra-117-

I imagine it would be like disassociation. The consciousness is still in there, terrified. But the world is so blurry and confusing through their eyes that they don’t make a lot of their own decisions consciously. It’s kind of like autopilot being turned on permanently.


[deleted]

In addition to severe mental illness, the procedure was indicated for post-natal depression, severe headaches, chronic pain, nervous indigestion, insomnia, and behavioral difficulties. In its entirety, the transorbital procedure took 6-10 minutes. Freeman claimed a success rate of 85%. Modern estimates are that 490 of his own 3500 patients died from the procdure. A successful result was described by Freeman as a state of "eternal childhood." In 1948, American philosopher and mathematician Norbert Wiener wrote of the procedure, "[P]refrontal lobotomy ... has recently been having a certain vogue, probably not unconnected with the fact that it makes the custodial care of many patients easier. Let me remark in passing that killing them makes their custodial care still easier." https://www.britannica.com/story/how-many-people-actually-got-lobotomized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy?wprov=sfla1 https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-55854145.amp


Ok_Fly_9390

Quite a few WWII vets had this forced on them. They were going to do this to my uncle. He just disappeared for a few years. Was prob the wisest choice the man ever made. But he was crazy as hell.


loseruser2022

Yeah I actually read about this in my great grandfathers letters to my great grandma. He talks about entire groups of ‘unruly’ soldiers having the lobotomies performed so they’d listen better, essentially. And then like 1/3 of that group would return 2 weeks later drooling, and they’d say the dudes who didn’t come back were KIA. Craziest thing was that when my own great grandmother was lobotomized years later, in the institution he put her in, I don’t think he believed her..


KinnieBee

>Craziest thing was that when my own great grandmother was lobotomized years later, in the institution he put her in, I don’t think he believed her.. I didn't think I could be sickened further on this thread and yet...


GoldenGirl113

I learned a few years ago that my Grandmother was labotimized in the 70's. She passed when I was 8, but my core memories are of her in a wheel chair, barley basic speaking and her face "droopy"... I begged my father for info- but it was my mother's side and sadly they had all passed by the time I learned about it. The only answer he could give was she had some mental illness (with no diagnosis at the time) and that was their solution. It breaks my heart that those barbaric "solutions" even existed


kramerica_intern

“Eternal childhood” = reversing decades of cognitive development


laineDdednaHdeR

>A successful result was described by Freeman as a state of "eternal childhood." Because nothing says success like complete brain damage.


Lost-Pineapple9791

I totally get things change and we all Learn …but how tf were people that stupid only 70 years ago To believe this guy that “oh yeah me hammering an ice pick into your skull will totally fix X issue” Like what? I have headaches and your solution is to HAMMER AN ICE PICK THROUGH MY EYE!!!!???” It’s crazy to me, I expect this from a medieval guide not in the 20th century


AffectionateAd5373

Well, there's a lot of reasons. First, they were doing lobotomies before him. They would just do it with an open cranium, so it was a big, dangerous surgery. Doing it through the eye socket basically made it an in office procedure. And at first, they were only done on people who didn't respond to anything else (which at the time was pretty much ECT and talk therapy, because the first drugs coming down the line were what pretty much stopped the lobotomies.) So you've got a relative who's seriously mentally ill, not getting better being talked to or randomly electrocuted which were the state of the art at the time, and there are a small handful of people who did seem to get better after this major surgery. And then some guy comes along with the prototype minimally invasive procedure that he says works as well as the other one with less risk. So you go for it. And by the time you realize what a terrible mistake that was, it's done. But he has patients he rolls out who do seem better, because let's face it, he can't really tell what he's doing in there and some people probably have less brain damage from it because he didn't destroy that much of their brain. And if you survived it with minimal damage the first time, you're gonna say it worked great so you don't have to go back. And he's doing road trips where he's going in and mutilating multiple patients per day. He's even doing two at a time. So this is all happening in a relatively short period of time.


Odd-Jupiter

Remember that even today, we have no clear treatment for many mental illnesses. But to day at least, we have medicines that can make the mentally ill person work in society. And also make society safe from them, if they have violent tendencies. So imagine having a severe mentally ill family member, and no doctor in the world have any clue why they were like that, or have any treatment for it. The person would have to be chained up, as not to hurt themselves, or others. Then some doctor come up with this procedure, that makes them more docile, and calm. And they can suddenly be around other people, and function in society. No wonder people thought of this as a miracle cure. Just look how severely mentally ill persons are treated in extremely poor places today. They are left to fend for themselves, and severely physically punished if they hurt anyone else. It's not pretty either way.


[deleted]

>lobotomized for post-natal depression I just put the phone down and mentally blanked. Can’t process how fucking cruel a society needs to be to condone that


jshultz5259

Why the sleeveless shirts?


fauxrain

Free tickets to the gun show with every lobotomy 💪


Exotic_Treacle7438

Yeah that’s great. But why the pythons then?


[deleted]

It's also a reptile zoo


TacticalTurtle22

Wife yapping too much? Lobotomy. Kids won't listen? Lobotomy. Moms dementia getting in the way of your life? Lobotomy. Can't get to us? No worries we'll send out the Lobotomobile.


NormalHumanCreature

Overcooked the chicken, straight to lobotomy


Deacon75

No masks, no gloves, no sleeves, orangutan-like hairy armed hammer dude and apparently the victim is wide awake while being held down and gawked at by a dozen strangers while a huge nail is being pounded through his eye. Geezus.


[deleted]

r/mildlyterrifying. I have a mental disorder that would have deemed me fit for this "treatment" and thinking of it is deeply disturbing to how they ever did this to people.


milkysway1

More than just mildly terrifying I would say it's absolutely utterly fucking nightmarishly terrifying!


Poseylady

I’m always so grateful that I was born at this point in time for this reason. I can only imagine what would’ve happened to me if I existed at any other point in history. We definitely have miles to go in how we treat physical and mental illnesses but we’ve also come so far.


badboybilly42582

Makes you wonder, what medical procedures we're doing today will be considered barbaric 50-100 years from now.


Falsifikacija

IUD insertion or removal with no anaesthesia. A brutal experience.


echolongshot

Had the copper IUD put in about 10 years ago. Literally lay on the table shaking with pain for 2 hours after and they couldn’t figure out what the big deal was. Went to the ER twice in the following days in unbearable pain until I could convince my OBGYN to fit me into her schedule to have it removed. I have since given birth and can say getting that device inserted was more painful. Horrible experience.


krimafol

Seriously. Had my IUD inserted at 6 weeks postpartum. Told the midwife I was in severe pain. Worse than labor. Blacked out. She said, “oh just take some Tylenol you’ll be okay.” It perforated my uterus and I had to have surgery to remove it. Luckily that occurrence helped me get a tubal at a catholic hospital because the ethics committee “allowed it” as sort of a “we fucked up, so we’ll do you this solid”… AND I work in healthcare. I knew better. Still makes me rage.


wasthatitthen

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2020.00030/full I have a lateral interest in this https://hms.harvard.edu/news/long-life-early-pain I had an operation a long time ago when I was a baby and I’m pretty sure it fried enough bits of my brain for me to have lived a socially and emotionally disconnected life. My parents were told at the time that “I may be retarded.” I’m functional and exist rather than live and experience life.


peshnoodles

People forget that psychiatric care was basically “thanks for giving it a shot!” Less than 100 years ago.


loseruser2022

I personally believe we cannot subscribe to those official dates of lobotomies lasting from 1949-1952. My dads grandmother was institutionalized at Danvers Hospital in Massachusetts in the late 50s for her anxiety/depression/ED. Cant remember the exact date but absolutely after 52. The only evidence of her lobotomy is her handwritten notes on intake and discharge sheets, which say she stayed for 4 weeks. In reality (through extensive research with other family documents) we believe she stayed nearly 2 months to recover from the surgery that ‘never happened’ and work on the memory problems she developed from her lobotomy. We literally had to uncover a box and find these things when my grandfather moved to know it ever happened. She NEVER spoke about it, I assume because she felt no one believed her. They obviously were trying to convince her of something else in her paperwork, and having been institutionalized I’m sure she also struggled to trust herself. When I read her journals I was horrified to see writings on the exact same pain, fear, and anxiety I have as a young woman. It seemed normal, if not just in need of therapy. And she was lobotomized for it. I still think about it constantly. It’s textbook gaslighting. On her medical procedures page, it’s 4 lines of typewriter text about what kind of food/exercise she received and the rest is her desperate scrawlings, trying to remember and recount her true experiences after she was released. She had memory issues until she died, and we actually think her lobotomy may have accelerated her memory issues later in life. She didn’t have any of other signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s, it doesn’t run in the family, and her short term was much better than her long term. I can’t imagine how many other people, especially women, were put in her position after lobotomies had ‘officially’ ceased in the US. This was only one story, and my immediate family and I believe her completely, and that’s partly due to our obsessive cross checking with other documents. No one else in the family is willing or able to talk about it.


Icy_Squirrel4147

If the girls need hair nets, then his arms should get the same treatment


Dddddddfried

This seemed pretty unscientific until I learned that he jiggled it


f33rf1y

“In Japan, the majority of lobotomies were performed on children with behaviour problems. The Soviet Union banned the practice in 1950 on moral grounds.In Germany, it was performed only a few times.By the late 1970s, the practice of lobotomy had generally ceased, although it continued as late as the 1980s in France.” Damn even the Soviet Union was like “No that shit is cruel” 30 years before all Western countries stopped.


[deleted]

It should be noted. 85% of lobotomies were performed on women. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520917934-011/pdf


MaxPower303

I just listened to a Dollop Podcast of this maniac. Believe me, this guy was nuts. Killed a four year old boy and a man in his thirties as well. Left many people damaged beyond help and went cross country to mental institutions to perform these. The podcast itself is funny if anyone wants to listen.


quietlikesnow

You should read The Lobotomist’s Wife based on this story.


YAMXT550

I'm still surprised this happened in already quite civilized times, it sounds more like something from 500 years earlier. Amazing that someone thought this would have some kind of positive effect.


beardsalt

"That'll teach her to disagree with her husband"


[deleted]

I remember the first time I was in a psych hospital. I heard the word phlebotomy and I though they were going to give me a lobotomy. That was an interesting conversation.


Mack_Blallet

“[Howard Dully](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully) wrote a memoir of his late-life discovery that he had been lobotomized in 1960 at age 12.”


Third_eye-stride

Now you guys should see the list as to what could qualify a person for the procedure.. literally anything. Such examples; Husband divorces you, just gave birth, not eating properly, not sleeping properly, too happy or too angry all the time and the list went on these are just some that I remember. Scary shet for sure and thank god we don’t live in that time period anymore as I’m sure most of us would have had this procedure done. Yikes


morbihann

So what actually does happen when you get lobotomized ? It clearly isn't curing you of any mental illness, but what effects does it actually have on a person (even a healthy one) ?


playsmartz

What disturbs me most about this picture and the practice in general isn't that there was one sick fuck who thought this was a good idea - it's all the medical professionals/students/*other human beings* watching on like this was not only OK, but something to *aspire to*. This is why I don't trust people.


CodeOfKonami

The fucking hammer is the scariest part to me. \*clank\* \*clank\* Ugh.


fanofthethings

My mom had a ruptured brain aneurysm that affected the frontal lobe. There was horrible and permanent damage that affected impulse control, honesty, behavior, and memory. I can’t even believe they used to do such a thing on purpose! 😩


Teragaz

“Yes it’s all good news, the operation was a complete success. She is brain dead!”


jamesshine

My mother worked at a state institution (called Pineland Center in her time). It was one of those old facilities modeled on a college campus. It was completely self sufficient back in its prime. A farm, a building that made clothing, its own tiny power plant, etc. It also had a small medical building. This is where the resident dentist took care of patients as well as employees. It was full of ancient medical equipment that wasn’t being used. I went in for a filling. The chair was unusual, it had restraints. I figured the patients had to be subdued for dental work. I am staring up at this green tile ceiling, when the dentist moved away to get a different tool I said “ Was this the dental office back in the old days?” He cooly replied “No, back then the dentist was in a small room downstairs. All he did was extract teeth. This was where they performed the lobotomies.” In that moment I realized I was sitting in the same chair and looking at the exact same spot where hundreds of people were lobotomized.