Things you may not know and probably don’t want to but tough. It’s my blog and I found this list so I’m sharing it with you.
The first frontal lobotomy performed in the United States was in 1936 on 63 year old Alice Hood Hammatt. Alice lived to be 68, dying of pneumonia. After her surgery, she was less anxious and managed to stay out of mental institutions. Her husband said they were the happiest, most even years of her life.
Warren Baxter, the actor who played the Cisco Kid and who was the highest paid actor in 1936, earning $284,000 requested to have a lobotomy in 1950. He suffered chronic pain from severe arthritis and, at the time, that was one treatment option. He died within the month.
Rosemary Kennedy, sister to John F., was lobotomized in 1941 at the age of 23 in hopes of alleviating her violent mood swings that her father couldn’t deal with any longer. It was performed while she was sedated yet conscious. To determine how deeply to cut, the doctors doing the surgery kept asking her to recite the Lord’s Prayer and sing God Bless America. When she became incoherent, they stopped cutting. She never recovered, remaining incoherent and was eventually institutionalized in 1949. She stayed there until her death in 2005.
The first “ice pick” lobotomy was performed in 1946 on a 29 year old Sallie Ellen Ionesco because she was violently suicidal. It was done in the doctor’s office. First she was knocked out via electroshock. He then inserted an ice pick above her eyeball, banged it through her eye socket into her brain and then swirled it around in a sort of eggbeater motion to scramble the neural connections. She lost a little memory function but was overall fine and lived a fairly normal life compared to how it was before the technique. Hmm, need to look into this one a little more. Perhaps I could add it to my list of surgeries I perform.
Interesting tidbits – Scandinavian doctors performed 2.5 times the amount of lobotomies per capita than did hospitals in the United States. In its heyday in the 40’s and 50’s there were 40,000 prefrontal lobotomies performed in this country. Howard Dully, one of the youngest patients to receive a lobotomy at age 12, was the first to obtain a picture of himself undergoing the procedure. Walter Freeman, the doctor who did the lobotomy on Alice performed over 3500 surgeries during his career, 2500 of which were the ice pick variety. He lost his surgical privileges after Helen Mortensen died in 1967 when he severed a blood vessel in her brain while undergoing her third procedure. Her first was in 1946, the second in 1956.
Have a good weekend and let me know if you’re interested. I’m sure I could do this.
The first frontal lobotomy performed in the United States was in 1936 on 63 year old Alice Hood Hammatt. Alice lived to be 68, dying of pneumonia. After her surgery, she was less anxious and managed to stay out of mental institutions. Her husband said they were the happiest, most even years of her life.
Warren Baxter, the actor who played the Cisco Kid and who was the highest paid actor in 1936, earning $284,000 requested to have a lobotomy in 1950. He suffered chronic pain from severe arthritis and, at the time, that was one treatment option. He died within the month.
Rosemary Kennedy, sister to John F., was lobotomized in 1941 at the age of 23 in hopes of alleviating her violent mood swings that her father couldn’t deal with any longer. It was performed while she was sedated yet conscious. To determine how deeply to cut, the doctors doing the surgery kept asking her to recite the Lord’s Prayer and sing God Bless America. When she became incoherent, they stopped cutting. She never recovered, remaining incoherent and was eventually institutionalized in 1949. She stayed there until her death in 2005.
The first “ice pick” lobotomy was performed in 1946 on a 29 year old Sallie Ellen Ionesco because she was violently suicidal. It was done in the doctor’s office. First she was knocked out via electroshock. He then inserted an ice pick above her eyeball, banged it through her eye socket into her brain and then swirled it around in a sort of eggbeater motion to scramble the neural connections. She lost a little memory function but was overall fine and lived a fairly normal life compared to how it was before the technique. Hmm, need to look into this one a little more. Perhaps I could add it to my list of surgeries I perform.
Interesting tidbits – Scandinavian doctors performed 2.5 times the amount of lobotomies per capita than did hospitals in the United States. In its heyday in the 40’s and 50’s there were 40,000 prefrontal lobotomies performed in this country. Howard Dully, one of the youngest patients to receive a lobotomy at age 12, was the first to obtain a picture of himself undergoing the procedure. Walter Freeman, the doctor who did the lobotomy on Alice performed over 3500 surgeries during his career, 2500 of which were the ice pick variety. He lost his surgical privileges after Helen Mortensen died in 1967 when he severed a blood vessel in her brain while undergoing her third procedure. Her first was in 1946, the second in 1956.
Have a good weekend and let me know if you’re interested. I’m sure I could do this.
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