The History of Psychosurgery

Psychosurgery is a now debunked medical treatment for mental disorders, in which doctors destroy brain tissue to alter the patient's behavior. Its most notorious form, the lobotomy, gained popularity in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s. The rise of prescription drugs and a greater awareness of psychosurgery's harmful effects have since earned it the condemnation of both the medical community and the general public.

The Middle Ages

• During the Middle Ages, doctors performed trepanning, in which a circle was cut out of a patient's skull. This was thought to let bad spirits escape from the patient. But like most medicine of the day, trepanning had no basis in science. Earlier societies, such as the ancient Sumarians, also engaged in trepanning.

The Phineas Gage Accident

• Railroad worker Phineas Gage was injured in a freak accident in 1848. An explosion propelled an iron rod through part of Gage's brain, turning the once mild-mannered man into an aggressive brute. The accident not only demonstrated that a person could live with a partially-destroyed brain, but also that behavior could be radically altered by such destruction.

The Birth of Modern Psychosurgury

• Gottlieb Burckhardt paid attention to Phineas Gage's accident, and in 1882, he began experimenting with psychosurgery. If Gage could be turned from pleasant to aggressive by a brain injury, Burckhardt reasoned that a person with a violent personality might be made calm by a similar injury. He experimented on six patients, removing part of their frontal cortexes. The experiment killed one patient and gave several patients epilepsy. Still, Burkhardt was pleased that his experiments yielded behavioral modification. He considered psychosurgery a success.

Reign of the Lobotomy

• Neurology professor Egas Moniz performed the first lobotomy in Portugal in 1935. He removed the frontal lobes of his patients, because he thought this was the seat of mental disorder. Others followed his lead, and between 1945 and 1949, lobotomies in the United States increased tenfold, in part because of it's championing by psychiatrist Walter J. Freeman.

  In the 1940s, the general public still saw lobotomies as a viable solution for helping mentally disturbed patients. But around this time, journalists started writing more about the procedure's downsides. In 1949, Newsweek ran an article calling the lobotomy a disappointment, and saying they were performed "indiscriminately."

Decline of the Lobotomy

• In the 1950s, doctors began proscribing anti-psychotic drugs, and these drugs became the new hope for people suffering mental disorders. Lobotomies started to decline, and psychosurgery died as public and scientific opinion turned against it.