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Prefrontal Lobotomy Essay

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Treating mental illness has been of great concern for scientists and researchers, even in the early 1900s. Mental illness inhibits individuals from carrying out normal day to day functions and providing the opportunity for these individuals to get their lives back, by whatever means necessary, has been the constant goal. ("Mental Illness," n.d.) In the 1930s, scientist Moniz made a claim that prefrontal lobotomy, severing the prefrontal lobes from the rest of the brain, was the answer to all problems mental health, and from there the practice exploded. This was in part because there was no research training at the time but mainly because there was no effective way of treating mental illness. Moniz’s idea of implementing lobotomy to mental …show more content…

In an article published by PBS, mental illness was spreading in the early 1900s and doctors did not know what to do to help all the suffering individuals. (“Moniz develops lobotomy for mental illness 1935,” n.d.) Moniz’s claim that psychosurgery treated mental illness provided hope and was the hope doctors clung to in attempting to control the mental illness epidemic. It did not matter what research training was involved nor did it matter whether it was ethical or not. Antipsychotics did not exist, psychotherapy proved ineffective for suffering individuals who seemingly required a more direct approach to cure their illness and control their symptoms. Today, however, we know of more non-invasive techniques to treat mental illness like antipsychotics and psychosurgery is only used as a last resort or in extreme cases. Functional magnetic resonance imaging can study disorders like schizophrenia and psychopathy. Decompression therapy has developed and has reportedly decreased recidivism in criminals suffering from mental illness. (Kiehl & Hoffman, 2011) Surgery is a gamble doctors were willing to take in the early 1900s but today we know

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Bree Chodos March 1, 2024 English I Honors The Lobotomy: A Revolutionary Invention What if some people didn’t experience emotions? The controversial surgery called the Lobotomy was invented in 1935 by Evas Monis for the treatment of mental illness. This surgery was done by scraping parts of the frontal lobe of your brain, but there were many harmful outcomes. At first, a man named John Fulton was interested in multiple parts of the nervous system, but ended up only focusing on the frontal lobes of the brain (“Lessons to Be Learnt from the History of Lobotomy”).

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Many saw these treatments as the best solution but based on all the effects that happened without any type of consent, and how much they targeted women, there is no doubt that mental health practices in the early 1900s hurt more people than they helped. It is easy to look back to where the practices started to see how poorly they hold up by current standards. One of the first “cures” was referred to as hydrotherapy, this was

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Lobotomies became the most popular treatment of the 1930’s for the mentally ill ranging from 40,000 to 50,000 people having this procedure performed on them (William 1). Antonio Egas Moniz established the use of lobotomy in 1935 in Portugal. Moniz believed by destroying the frontal cortex of the brain, it would destroy the disease. Originally named “Leucotomy” in 1930, he also “founded the technology to visualize the blood vessels in the brain using radioactive tracers” (1). This procedure involved the doctors drilling holes into the heads of the patients and injecting large doses of alcohol into their brains to kill the frontal lobe but soon switched to cutting the frontal cortex with wire due to multiple deaths from the alcohol injections.

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Lobotomies came into vogue in the 1940s as an advanced surgery to intervene in the lives of women suffering from schizophrenia. The ethical complications of lobotomies led to a series of reforms that aimed to discontinue lobotomies and practice more humane methods. Scientists invented technologies that have much more effective and fewer side effects than lobotomy in the later years of the 1900s. The convenient procedure of lobotomy became the best prescription for the mentally disturbed women in the 1940s, yet the controversies surrounding the ethics and side effects of this operation led to its demise as a best

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