🧠 The Case of Dr. Walter Freeman: The Father of the Lobotomy
🧠 The Case of Dr. Walter Freeman: The Father of the Lobotomy
📍 Who He Was:
An American neurologist, not a trained surgeon.
Known for pioneering and aggressively promoting the transorbital lobotomy.
Nicknamed "The Lobotomist."
🪓 What He Did:
Freeman popularized a procedure where he:
Took an ice-pick-like tool.
Inserted it through the eye socket (above the tear duct).
Hammered it into the brain with a mallet.
Wiggled it side to side to sever connections in the prefrontal cortex.
The whole thing took 10 minutes. No surgical room. No gloves. No anesthesia—just a shot of electroshock to knock the patient out.
📈 The Scope:
Performed around 4,000 lobotomies.
Took the operation on tour, doing demonstrations in hospitals, prisons, and even in a camper van he called the "Lobotomobile."
Lobotomized children as young as 4 years old.
Once performed 25 lobotomies in one day.
⚠️ The Fallout:
Many patients were left in vegetative states, with lifelong incontinence, speech problems, or complete personality destruction.
Others simply became docile—"zombified" versions of themselves.
Rosemary Kennedy, sister of JFK, was famously lobotomized by a different doctor (but using Freeman’s method), and was left incapacitated for life.
⛔ How It Ended:
Freeman’s license was eventually revoked in 1967 after a patient died from a brain hemorrhage—his third death in one year.
By then, antipsychotic medications had replaced lobotomies.
He died in 1972, still believing he had helped thousands.