freeman, dr. walter

Pangerio · 1060285. Tue Mar 04, 2014 6:56 am

I recently came a cross a quotation from Walter Freeman describing transorbital lobotomy, which was mentioned above. It also struck me as quite interesting...

"This consists of knocking them out with a shock and while they are under the 'anesthetic' thrusting an ice pick up between the eyeball and the eyelid through the roof of the orbit actually into the frontal lobe of the brain and making the lateral cut by swinging the thing from side to side. I have done two patients on both sides and another on one side without running into any complications, except a very black eye in one case. There may be trouble later on but it seemed fairly easy, although definitely a disagreeable thing to watch. It remains to be seen how these cases hold up, but so far they have shown considerable relief of their symptoms, and only some of the minor behaviour difficulties that follow lobotomy. They can even get up and go home within an hour or so."

Quoted in Oliver Sack's book: An Antropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales.

http://books.google.com.mt/books/about/An_Anthropologist_on_Mars.html?id=h8UgAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y