Just The Gist of… The Disturbing History of the Lobotomy

Beginning in the 1950s, you could take any patient into a local doctor’s office, pay $200, have an ice pick inserted through their eye socket and then hammered into their brain. The whole thing took less than five minutes and was considered as unremarkable as getting a flu shot. Called the ‘lobotomy’, Dr Walter Freeman had invented the procedure as a ‘miracle cure’ for any and all mental illness - he figured by cutting up the part of the brain that controlled emotion, he could stop people being so… emotional. Men would bring in their wives with post-natal depression. Parents would bring in children who occasionally misbehaved. America was officially dazzled by Dr Freeman’s lobotomy technique. But most patients who received lobotomies ended up severely brain damaged (because, you know, they had an ICE PICK shoved into their brain), with many needing 24-hour care for the rest of their lives, if they survived at all.…We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions.Want to give us a SuGISTion? Tell Rosie to stop singing so much? Email us at [email protected] Just The Gist is a Just The Network production. Executive Producer and Host: Rosie Waterland | Senior Producer and Editor: James Joseph | Producer: Kate Leaver | Additional production support: Hayley Staveley | Acast Legends: Guy Scott-Wilson and Simon McDermott | Production Assistant: Pocket…BBC: ‘The strange and curious history of the Lobotomy’ (2011) - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15629160 PBS documentary: ‘The Lobotomist’ (2008) - https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/lobotomist/ Howard Dully’s story on NPR (2005) - https://storycorps.org/podcast/special-remembering-howard-dully-of-my-lobotomy/ PBS interview with Howard Dully (2005) - https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-original-interview-howard-dully/ The Guardian: ‘He was so bad, they put an ice pick in his brain’ (2008) - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jan/13/neuroscience.medicalscienceHoward Dully wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully#cite_note-8 Dr. Walter Freeman wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.