Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging

truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

In 1935, Portuguese neuroscientist Dr. E. Goss Moniz pioneered a new procedure to treat

symptoms of psychiatric illness using a thin instrument.

A surgeon could sever the delicate neural connections between the frontal lobe and other parts

of the brain.

The procedure resulted in significant changes to the patient's behavior, despite a mixed

reception by the medical community, Moniz received a Nobel Prize in 1949.

In the ensuing decades, the practice of transorbital lobotomies was championed by American

psychiatrist Dr. Walter Freeman.

He operated on over 4,000 patients and remained a fierce advocate for the procedure, long

after it fell into disrepute.

While some patients did seem to be cured of their psychiatric distress, the main effect

of lobotomies was the dismantling of the patient's personality.

According to Freeman's own numbers, about 73% of his patients remained hospitalized for

life, or in a state of idle dependency, and another 5% died during the operation.

Recently in the Washington Post, columnist Megan McCartle pointed to the history of lobotomies

as a cautionary tale, quote, the first lesson Freeman offers the monitored reader is not

to rush past the point of no return to move by inches rather than leaps when the stakes

are high, Freeman and his partner lobotomize 20 people in their first 4 months, and with

every operation, I suspect it became more necessary to believe in the good of them rather than

...