The removal of a portion of your brain, usually part of the frontal lobe. Not used much anymore (beyond removing brain tumors), but historically used to treat psychiatric disorders.
The classic method (Egyptian) involved inserting a hook into the nose and through the upper nasal cavity to get to the brain, pulling the tissue out through the nostrils.
A lobotomy is a procedure in which you sever the connection between your frontal lobe of your brain and the rest of it. This supposedly cured a lot of unwanted behavior in people with a wide variety of existing and made up mental problems.
Usually they did this by inserting a pick through your nose or eye socket and unceremoniously wiggle it sideways to apply the (un)necessary brain damage.
It ‘worked’ because if you didn’t end up like a drooling vegetable, it destroyed the pathways of your brain involved in creating and responding to strong emotions.
It’s putting a hole in the brain.
It was used to “treat” violent behavior by turning the person into a vegetable. This was the same time period where leeching was a cure for several illnesses.
If you attempt to give someone a lobotomy, you will likely kill them. And whatever the outcome should be prosecuted.
The original concept of what’s now called lobotomy, known as leukotomy or frontal leucotomy, was developed by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz in 1935. Moniz’s work led to the first prefrontal lobotomy in 1936 by Walter Freeman in the United States, who later modified the procedure and renamed it “lobotomy”
Basically you insert a needle into the corner of the eye and sever the connections of brain tissue .
Imagine your brain is like a big, busy city full of roads where cars (your thoughts and feelings) drive around.
A lobotomy is like someone blocking off or cutting some of those roads to try to stop traffic jams — especially the ones that cause a person to feel very sad, angry, or scared all the time.
But the problem is, when those roads are blocked, some of the good cars can’t drive anymore either — like the ones that help you smile, make decisions, or feel like yourself.
So while doctors thought it might help people who were very sick in the brain, it often caused more harm than good, and now we know it’s not a safe or kind thing to do. That’s why we don’t use lobotomies anymore.
“Tomy “ in medical speak means removing something, or at least cutting it off.
“Lobo” means lobe.
So based on the name this is an operation to remove a lobe of something. In fact it’s an operation to cut off (fully or partially) a lobe of the brain, typically the frontal lobe.
This calms people down, to the point where they become zombie like. It was a treatment for extreme mental illness around the 50s and 60s. The lead character in “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest” is given one.
It isn’t done any more, it’s considered barbaric. How to do it is forbidden knowledge.
In the 70s a drinkers toast was “I’d rather have a full bottle in front of me, than a full frontal lobotomy “
They’d basically insert an ice-pick around the back of the eye, and stab through the skull into the brain, then swirl it around a bit until the ‘patient’ was easier to handle.
It was giving people brain damage to mellow them out.
Comments
it is “a lobotomy” and you cannot give it to anyone. it’s illegal.
The removal of a portion of your brain, usually part of the frontal lobe. Not used much anymore (beyond removing brain tumors), but historically used to treat psychiatric disorders.
The classic method (Egyptian) involved inserting a hook into the nose and through the upper nasal cavity to get to the brain, pulling the tissue out through the nostrils.
A lobotomy is a procedure in which you sever the connection between your frontal lobe of your brain and the rest of it. This supposedly cured a lot of unwanted behavior in people with a wide variety of existing and made up mental problems.
Usually they did this by inserting a pick through your nose or eye socket and unceremoniously wiggle it sideways to apply the (un)necessary brain damage.
It ‘worked’ because if you didn’t end up like a drooling vegetable, it destroyed the pathways of your brain involved in creating and responding to strong emotions.
It’s putting a hole in the brain.
It was used to “treat” violent behavior by turning the person into a vegetable. This was the same time period where leeching was a cure for several illnesses.
If you attempt to give someone a lobotomy, you will likely kill them. And whatever the outcome should be prosecuted.
The original concept of what’s now called lobotomy, known as leukotomy or frontal leucotomy, was developed by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz in 1935. Moniz’s work led to the first prefrontal lobotomy in 1936 by Walter Freeman in the United States, who later modified the procedure and renamed it “lobotomy”
Basically you insert a needle into the corner of the eye and sever the connections of brain tissue .
Imagine your brain is like a big, busy city full of roads where cars (your thoughts and feelings) drive around.
A lobotomy is like someone blocking off or cutting some of those roads to try to stop traffic jams — especially the ones that cause a person to feel very sad, angry, or scared all the time.
But the problem is, when those roads are blocked, some of the good cars can’t drive anymore either — like the ones that help you smile, make decisions, or feel like yourself.
So while doctors thought it might help people who were very sick in the brain, it often caused more harm than good, and now we know it’s not a safe or kind thing to do. That’s why we don’t use lobotomies anymore.
“Tomy “ in medical speak means removing something, or at least cutting it off.
“Lobo” means lobe.
So based on the name this is an operation to remove a lobe of something. In fact it’s an operation to cut off (fully or partially) a lobe of the brain, typically the frontal lobe.
This calms people down, to the point where they become zombie like. It was a treatment for extreme mental illness around the 50s and 60s. The lead character in “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest” is given one.
It isn’t done any more, it’s considered barbaric. How to do it is forbidden knowledge.
In the 70s a drinkers toast was “I’d rather have a full bottle in front of me, than a full frontal lobotomy “
A Lobotomy was a surgical procedure that was used as a cure-all for behavioral issues and mental illness in the early to mid 1900’s.
It was essentially giving someone brain damage in their frontal lobe to make them less aggravating to deal with.
Depressed? Lobotomy. Child acting up? Lobotomy. Wife too opinionated? Lobotomy. Gay? Lobotomy.
They’d basically insert an ice-pick around the back of the eye, and stab through the skull into the brain, then swirl it around a bit until the ‘patient’ was easier to handle.
It was giving people brain damage to mellow them out.
I’ve heard that many antidepressants are simply chemical lobotomies. Any truth?