Lobotomy

Lobotomy was a practice that was performed for patients with psychic disorders in the early twentieth century, the 1930s and 40s to be exact. The procedure consisted of drilling holes in the skull and cutting nerve fibers from the frontal lobes to the rest of the brain. At that time this procedure of brain surgery was considered a very successful way to treat many frontal lobe disorders. Well let’s just say that it was successful in eradicating the target problem, the problems that arose due to the surgery were often considered as tolerable side effects.

These side effects included moodiness, intellectual deficiencies and lack of initiative, poor judgment and seizures. The target problem that was usually remedied by lobotomy was depression. At that time the eradication of depression, despite all other side effects, was considered fortunate.

Times are changing however, and surgical procedures such as lobotomy are now considered barbaric. We have to realize however, that at the time this procedure was practiced, there were no advanced psychiatric drugs or electric stimulation for the brain. Even today’s psychiatric medicines are not without side effects, though maybe lesser in magnitude than lobotomy after effects. Still lobotomy was responsible for curing many types of mental disorders related to frontal lobes, and that was a true achievement at that time.

We have to remember that the advancement in medical profession that we are seeing today is not the result of biologists’ research; it is the result of a combination of researches from Chemistry, electronics, and physics. Thus the blame for lack of proper mental medication doesn’t go only to the “doctors”.