The Ice Pick Surgeon | Search for a Cure | 1
American Scandal
Audible
4.5 • 19.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Walter Freeman is devastated when he learns the truth about mental asylums. The medical care is barbaric, and for patients, everyday life is a nightmare. So Freeman begins searching for an alternative. It's a quest that leads him to one of the most controversial procedures in medical history.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, prime members, you can listen to American scandal, add free on Amazon music, download |
| 0:05.8 | the app today. |
| 0:07.8 | A listener note, this episode contains graphic descriptions of medical experiments and may |
| 0:12.5 | not be suitable for younger listeners. |
| 0:17.3 | It's late at night on Christmas Eve, 1936. |
| 0:30.5 | In Washington, D.C., the streets are quiet and empty. |
| 0:33.6 | Most people are home enjoying a white Christmas, but not Walter Freeman. |
| 0:38.1 | Tonight Freeman is trudging through banks of snow. |
| 0:40.8 | He's shivering and miserable with his shoes soaking wet. |
| 0:44.3 | He'd give anything to be near a fireplace. |
| 0:47.3 | And Freeman can't return home. |
| 0:49.3 | He's looking for someone who's on the loose and he can't stop because if he doesn't find |
| 0:53.2 | this man, something bad could happen. |
| 0:58.0 | Freeman looks over at his professional partner who's following behind him. |
| 1:01.8 | That man's name is James Watts. |
| 1:04.0 | He's balding and wears wire rim glasses, looking very much the part of the job that both |
| 1:08.3 | men practice. |
| 1:10.0 | Freeman and Watts are doctors at a nearby hospital. |
| 1:13.4 | Their pioneers in psychosurgery, a radical new field in which brain surgeries performed |
| 1:18.5 | on people with mental illness. |
| 1:20.5 | Yesterday, the two performed an experimental surgery. |
| 1:24.1 | It's known as the lobotomy. |
... |
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