WEBVTT - How Lobotomies Work 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.640 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:11.840 from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.400 the podcast. It's called Stuff You Should Know. It's Josh 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.119 and Chuck Compson in Long Beach together. Now you know 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.560 you're in trouble. What's up, Chuck? You loven sitting on 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.079 that one? That's good? Thanks? Thank you, Chuck? How you 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.440 doing well? Are you pretty good? I'm feeling great, actually, Chuck, 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.520 I am glad to be alive. Yes, so, Chuck, Yes, 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:37.599 I think this could arguably pan out to be our 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:42.000 greatest podcast ever. No, I really don't think so. Chuck 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.040 did the cheek thing twice before this one. It's kind 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.800 of enough to do it a second time. And I 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:49.879 don't think we've ever had a topic that Chuck and 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.839 I were more intensely interested in than this one. I know. 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:54.680 It kind of just came out of nowhere, and it's 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.440 really well, not out of nowhere, because it's historical, but 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.080 um in our eyes, out of nowhere, which if in 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:05.840 our eyes? Yeah, a little foreshadowing from Charles Bryant. Nice one, Shuck, 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:08.959 If you will get off of L O L Cats 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.080 for a second and go check your iTunes. You'll find 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.600 that the title of this one is how lobotomies work, 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.959 And that's what we're gonna be talking about our lobotomy. Fascinating, 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.480 it really is. Lobotomy is kind of exist in h 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:28.000 this little um segment of twentieth century culture, medical madness, 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.160 I guess you could say, right right, and pop culture, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.279 because you still hear it being thrown around like boys 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.120 might lobotomize me, scramble my brain. But it's kind of 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.640 exactly the way it happened. Yeah, yeah, So, Chuck, you're 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.920 a lover of great cinema, right, of course, of course 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:44.240 you've seen one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, right, I 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.759 have a poster, you do, Yeah, a good one, Yeah, 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.600 the one in Jack Nicholson laughing with the watch cap on. Yeah, 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.280 it's a good one. Um. So, of course you remember 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.800 the the pivotal scene of the movie where McMurphy is 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.960 um lobotomized for being unruly, tries to kill them their 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.640 hatchet because nurse ratchet, Nurse ratchet hatchet. That was a 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.559 Freudian slip right there. It was. She was a Hatchet. Yeah. 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.880 Um so, uh she was mean, and I'm totally with you. 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:12.880 It was the Freudian slip part that got me. I 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:14.600 had like eight jokes going in my head at once, 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:15.959 and I was like, I can't say that. I can't 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:20.399 say that. I can't say that. It's like the terminator. Yeah, 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.360 um so yeah. So he tries to kill Nurse Ratchet 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.760 because she was a terrible nurse and kind of evil, 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.880 very evil, And so he gets lobotomized and they don't 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.920 show the procedure. Don't worry if you ever want to 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.320 know what one was like, we're going to go into 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.200 grizzly detail in a minute. Um. And he comes out 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.919 just kind of this drooling imbecile, which I have to 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:49.359 remind everybody was actually a medical term before it was imbecile, 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:55.920 moron and idiot were all degrees of mental retardation. Isn't 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.079 that weird? Yeah? Of course this is at the same 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.079 time that people were performing the bottom those It seems 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.520 like very archaic, even though it wasn't that long ago. Yeah, well, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.320 let's set the scene. Okay, all right, So we're talking 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.360 in the nineteen thirties, and the nineteen thirties were a 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:14.240 terrible time to be nuts. Basically, you got locked up 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.440 in a straight jacket to keep you from eating your 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:21.160 own thess um or throwing it at orderlies or doing 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.760 anything really crazy. And that was about it. Um. They 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:30.600 had certain um, certain techniques like shock therapy. Right, what 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.640 do they use? Uh they still use shock therapy here 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.080 and there? Actually, so well you have like electro convulsive therapy, 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:43.800 and you had apparently they also used to use insulin. Okay, insulin, right, 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.240 we know how bad that is from I can't remember 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.200 one of our aging podcasts, right, Um. And they would 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.360 basically inject a hefty dose of insulin into a patient. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:58.720 Um too the okay, chuck my paper wrestling was going 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.360 to get the wrath and Jerry, they know we used 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.640 crypt sheets, buddy. Um. So they inject the patient with 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.000 the hefty dose of insulin and um would basically shock 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:15.000 their system, possibly causing convulsions. There was another drug just 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:16.920 to subdue them. Hold on, I'm getting to that. This 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.479 is the craziest part. This is this was the grasp 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.400 that medical science had on mental illness at the time. 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:28.520 There's another drug called metrozol, which was a respiratory and 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:33.040 um circulatory stimulant and then hefty doses it to produce 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.240 shock and convulsions. So if you'll notice, all three of 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:39.960 these produced convulsions shock therapy. And the reason that they 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.000 did that was because there was a suspicion that there 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:47.480 is a link between epilepsy, convulsions, and mental illness and 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:49.440 that if you had one, you couldn't have the other. 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.760 So by producing convulsions, they thought that they were treating 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.240 mental illness. Unbelievable. Yeah, so you could have just had 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.640 epilepsy and that that they would sit you in the 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.360 elect show convulsive shock therapy chair and to treat you. Yeah, 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.680 they'd stick a little paddle in your mouth and turn 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:07.680 on the juice to tell you what man, I like. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.080 I sometimes look back and say, boy, the nineteen fifties, 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:11.520 that would have been cool to look back then, But 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:13.719 then you hear stories like this and you kind of 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.560 forget about the downside. Yeah. Ect is definitely one of 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.599 the downside of this era, right all right? So um, 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:27.120 another problem with this was that the mental um mental care. Wow, 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:29.279 have you had a little botomy? I had a little 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.920 bit of and yeah, um no, I had some metro's 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.320 whole earlier. I'm all jacked up. UM. The the the 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:40.279 state of mental hospitals in the US in the in 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.520 the thirties and forties was that they were overcrowded, right, 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.440 because I mean, if you can't treat anybody, really, you 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:50.279 can't treat their mental illness, which they come in there in. Yeah, right, 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.159 they wanted docile patients, they wanted people that didn't cause 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.480 trouble and really anyway that they could get there was 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.400 kind of okay at the time. And this right, and 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.600 this was also before drug therapy was created, So in 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:08.480 the thirties, nineteen thirty six, this new procedure comes about, right, Well, 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.800 it was the thirty five in Portugal, you're right, Yeah, 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.320 sorry about that. Yeah, that was doctor Antonio IGAs Monies 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.880 and Dr Almida Lima in Portugal performed the first lobotomies 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.080 by drilling holes into the skull on either side of 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:30.479 the prefrontal cortex and injecting alcohol and there to destroy 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:34.679 the fibers connected. And this was actually based on um 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.000 an earlier study from nineteen thirty three by a couple 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:42.640 of Yale researchers who removed the prefrontal cortex is from 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:48.760 a pair of monkeys and the other one Binkie will say. Yeah, Um, 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.599 these two monkeys had their prefrontal cortex cort texas removed, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.240 and um, the researchers found that they could still they 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.280 still had intellect, but they were lacking the emotion. Led 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.239 to violent outbursts when they didn't get their way. Zey, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.440 by the way, I like Binky better. Um, can we 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:11.280 stay with Binki? Okay? So the the doctor, um, oh, 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.080 the Portugue Fulton and Carlisle, I'll know you're going back 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.760 to Portugal. Yeah. Dr Moniz saw Fulton present. Um, one 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.600 of the Yale researchers saw Fulton present his findings and 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:27.440 he thought, huh, my mental patients act like monkeys, you know, 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.559 violent outbursts when they don't you know, when they see 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:33.400 things that aren't really there. Right, So let me get 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.920 my hands on a cadaver and see what I can see, 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.080 what I can work out with the Brian. So this early, 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.640 this early, that was called the pre frontal lobotomy, right, 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:43.840 started out, like you said, by drilling holes in the 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.920 school and adding alcohol. And the whole reason why chuck 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.280 the prefrontal cortex, Why the funnel loab? What's so important 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.760 about that? Well? The pre funnel lob but cortex Josh 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.800 has a number of complex functions um called executive functions 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.239 as they're known as we're talking high level decision making, planning, reasoning, 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:08.560 understanding personality, it's personal expression, that right thing. So basically 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.840 your personality, the way you create things, the way you 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.360 see the world, and how you react to the world, 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.520 g emotions, this is all this is all generated here. 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.120 It's originates in the prefrontal court. And you're stabbing the 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.280 front of your head right now speaking. Uh and so 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.600 that as we all know that the brain is connected, 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.440 it's all connected together, sure, sending and receiving signals like 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.839 like mass email and uh So, what you have here, 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.760 You've got two types of matter, gray and white matter. 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.840 Gray matter includes neurons and brain cells and blood vessels 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.400 and things like that. White matter is axons and nerve fibers, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.960 and they connect the gray matter and carry messages with 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.880 electric impulses. So the gray matter is where these impulses 0:08:55.880 --> 0:09:00.000 are generated. The white matter translates them or transfers them, transmits, 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.800 it transmits one of the trans uh So a lobotomy. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.560 What that does is it's intended to sever the white 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.599 matter between the different areas of gray matter, thus interrupting 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:17.080 the transmissions. Right. And the problem, um with dr monies 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.680 is technique. The early technique using alcohol is like you said, 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.000 the brains all connected, and alcohol, being a liquid is 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.080 kind of hard to keep in one place. So it 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.800 started to go and destroy other areas, right. But he 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.200 was onto something. He was onto something by destroying the 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.920 white matter, right, So instead he decided to be a 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.840 little more precise and he kept with the whole drilling 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:44.160 method actually based on an ancient um ancient method of 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:48.520 brain surgery called trepidation, which actually what Gosha we could 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.000 I'm gonna be in trouble here. We had a fan 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.520 right in and suggest trepidation and that's what got me 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.640 on the botomies in the first place. And I apologize. 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:58.880 So if you're out there listening, oh you don't remember 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.680 the fans, thank you, nameless fans. We love you bank 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.199 or Becky um. Yeah. And actually in the article how 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.280 the botomies work, um, there's a cool relief from a 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:16.000 horonymous box Um painting of some early physician trepanning a 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.640 patient and he's got like a little segment of the 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.360 skull lifted off in the brain's exposed and he's just 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.120 poking around in there. Um. But okay, so he's still 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.080 dr Monis is still using the drilling method, but now 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.800 he's inserting instruments in there. He inserted this one that 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.760 sounded like, um, it's a handle with a little loopy 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.880 wire that comes out. But yes, so when you when 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.080 you push it, when you push down the back of it, 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.280 the loop extends out and then you can pull it 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:50.720 in and just basically removed hunks of prefrontal cortex, right, 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:55.720 and that's exactly what hopefully matter. Yeah, you would say, um, 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.640 and it was successful. Well yeah, to too again to 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:02.199 very degrees and maybe not again because I think that's 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.160 the first time we've said that. But yeah, the lobotomy 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.280 was successful to varying degrees, vary varying degrees. But there 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.760 was this guy who went and saw, um, dr Monies 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.240 perform one of these. Yeah, this work gets good. And 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.600 this guy was named Dr Walter Freeman. And for probably 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:25.319 about what fifty thousand people, uh in the U s Alone, 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.160 this meeting between these two men was the worst thing 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.199 that ever happened in the history of humanity, because that's 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.640 about how many people were lobotomized between for about over 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.640 about a seven year period in the US. Was it 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:44.640 just seven years? Okay? So then there was many many 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:49.560 more actually, um, but yeah, the Dr Walter Freeman became 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:56.960 an immediate UM evangelists. He was called for Lobotomyes. Um. 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.280 He he tried monies as technique with a with a 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.560 partner um and did it successfully for a while. But 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:08.320 the problem is it was still surgery. It required a 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.480 surgeon to do it um operating room. Right. If Freeman 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:16.120 was actually not a neurosurgeon, he was a neurologist, required anesthetic. Yeah, 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.000 so there there were some some drawbacks to it in 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:21.560 Freeman's of pain, right, expense being one of them. Time 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.400 and resources. So he created something that was a lot handier, 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.080 a lot easier, and a lot quicker. And that is 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.800 what we call the transorbital or ice pick lobotomy, right, 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.840 Can I say that this is he determined that if 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:42.160 you took something which is technically called an orbito class 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.520 but it really looks sort of like an ice pick. 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:49.400 You said it yesterday on our web test, Uh, call 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.360 it arose by any other name exactly. So you put 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.679 this ice pick over over the eyeball but under the 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.760 bone there what's that called between the eyeball and the eyelid, 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.160 but ill on the eye until the back of the 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.360 orbital bone. Right, So, once you get to the back 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.640 of the orble orbital bone, there's a little resistance there 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.360 because it's bone, and so enter a little silver hammer 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:13.800 and so he just pinks on that thing until it 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.040 cracks through. And then he's got a pretty clean passageway 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.199 to the frontal cortex. And so you've got an ice 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.319 pick sticking out of your eye. He uh, he scrambles 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.360 it up a little bit once it's in there, and 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.320 then he does the same thing on the other side, 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.319 and ten minutes later if you're lobotomized, literally, so he 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:36.720 do both sides right right. Um, he got kind of 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.760 good at this, Yeah, Dr Freeman got really I guess 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.000 you could say good at this, or at least very fast. Um. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.640 In one two week period in West Virginia, he performed 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:52.600 lobotomy is on two people, and in one day he 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.720 performed lobotomies on twenty five patients right one day and 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.280 one day. So he's just basically bringing him in and 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.640 sending him out. He's exactly doing that. Actually read an 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:04.680 interview with one of his assistants at the time, and 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.680 he said he would literally not take breaks. As the 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.760 patient left, another one would be brought in ten minutes later. Boom. 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:13.880 And I don't think we mentioned yet he before he 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.280 does this, he doesn't use anesthetic. He knocks him out 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.800 with electro shock, right, So it's making use of too 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:25.960 extremely primitive and violent techniques right time. And the result was, 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.320 like we said, varied. I mean, it ranged anywhere from 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.800 people being satisfied and you know, seemingly successful, like a 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.200 highly emotional people suicidal all of a sudden, being more 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.960 docile and not so worried to uh to death, and 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.720 people rendered vegetables literally. So yeah, well the map. Dr 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:52.880 Freeman actually referred to lobotomyes um, informally as soul surgery. Yeah. 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.880 I hate that. The reason why is because he was 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.720 basically removing what kind of what makes us human. People 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:04.200 could still function under a successful lobotomy. People could still function, 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.840 they could still talk, but they weren't They weren't doing anything, 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.880 they weren't bringing anything to the table. There was no 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.320 reason for them to exist so much anymore for the 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:18.480 personality surgery exactly right, um and uh he would Uh 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:22.840 he did it, um again so fast, it's so so often. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.640 And he had a touch of a showman to him 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.720 that he basically did. He had a lobotomobile in which 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:33.560 he performed demonstrations. Right. He toured the country all over 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.200 the place. I think he ended up doing His estimates 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:40.120 run from two thousand to five thousand between nineteen six 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.040 and nineteen sixty seven, transorbital lobotomies UM in twenty three 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.520 states in the US. Right, he performed with both hands. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.400 He would stick the ice picks in with both hands 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.120 at once to add a little flare showmanship. Yeah, so 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.840 he was basically performing shows, lobotomy shows. Um. And not 0:15:55.960 --> 0:16:01.760 everybody reacted well to these. Um. There's season surgeons who 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.800 had seen tons of gore and blood and horrible things 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:09.080 in their lifetimes. Um would vomit watching these things. Some 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.040 had to leave. Um. There was a nurse whose account 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.720 I read of watching a lobotomy said, uh, the when 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.760 he moved the ice picks back and forth, it made 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:24.600 the sound of tearing cloth. Um. Later on in the USSR, 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:32.480 which actually banned lobotomies, and I think nineteen is embarrassing. Yeah, well, 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:38.280 fourteen years before we did right. Yeah. Um. A physician 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:46.960 named Nikolai or Serinsky, thanks dusky, um he called. He 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.840 said that lobotomies violate the principles of humanity and change 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.280 an insane person into an idiot. Again remember a medical 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:59.080 tournament at the time. Um, So there, I imagine that 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:05.200 there was something that affected you. Were you human being, 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:09.000 like a real human being seeing this this rough, violent, 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:14.160 um misguided or unguided procedure being performed, that it would 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.879 affect you in some way, like some very primal party 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.600 of you would say, that's not supposed to happen. Plus, 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:24.200 there was no official scientific basis for this. It was basically, hey, 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.960 look at the result in some cases. That is what 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.480 they were kind of basing this whole thing on. And also, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.159 as we were saying about Freeman being a showman and 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.200 doing it so fast, there was one visit to a 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.680 mental institution in Iowa. I don't remember what year it was, um, 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:45.200 but Freeman killed three people in one visit, and one 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.720 of the people this is so awful. Um. He was 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:49.840 doing his little show off thing with the two picks 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.920 at once, instead of as his own procedure dictated one 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.800 and then the other side. He was doing two picks 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.520 at once. So the patients on the table um with 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.120 two ice pick sticking out of his eyes, and Freeman says, 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.240 I'm going to take a photo of this, steps back 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.159 to take a photo. One of the ice pick slips 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:11.680 and kills the patient instantly. So apparently Freeman was said 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.560 to have basically just packed up right then and moved 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.200 on to the next place without missing a bead or staying. Geez, 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.760 that's packed up the lobotomobile. Yeah, hit the you know 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.000 one person he lobotomized, Josh, I know you do. He 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:30.399 lobotomized John F. Kennedy's sister, Rosemary. Dr Freeman did in Uh. 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.800 Rosemary was twenty three years old and uh, early on 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.480 her childhood she was shy and easy going, they say, 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.960 but as a teenager, shocker, she became rebellious and moody, 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.000 which and that's what struck me in a lot of 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.800 these cases is so many of them we're just normal 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:50.200 human emotions, like anything from postpartum depression to you know, 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.560 an overactive child. You know, it's just unbelievable. So she 0:18:54.760 --> 0:19:00.399 was lobotomized and afterward was rendered basically she couldn't speak, 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.320 She had the mental capacity of an infant couldn't control 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.840 or bodily functions, and the Kennedy family basically from that 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:11.960 point on said that she Ah was mentally retarded, which 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.000 they claimed that she may have been before, but who knows. 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.879 You want to talk about another guy, Howie, Chuck and 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.400 I have a shared hero. He is an indomitable three 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:29.320 fifty pounds six ft three bus driver who has this gentle, 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.800 tender personality. And his name is Howard Dully. And at 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.960 the age of twelve, Howard Dully met Dr Freeman under 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.520 unfortunate circumstances, meaning Dr Freeman had a couple of ice 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.720 picks on him when they met, and um, Howard ended 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:50.000 up under Freeman's care because of his stepmother, right, Chuck, Yeah, 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.600 he It was the kind of the classic story the 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.640 father gets remarried to a stepmother who is not very 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.800 patient and understanding with her son. That sounded like you, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.760 It sound like he may have been a little ryanbunctious, 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:03.960 but what twelve year old boy isn't. And I think 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.720 you have some good notes, actual notes. Yeah, well in 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.960 Freeman's notes that Dully turned up later, and we should say, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:14.080 how are Dully created this great radio piece that's an MPR. 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.359 You can actually find um by typing in my lobotomy 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:19.359 and Google. I think it's the first thing that comes up. 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.080 It's one of the most amazing things you've ever heard, 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.000 where he just goes and retraces the steps of his 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.640 lobotomy that he got when he was twelve and tries 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:29.919 to get to the bottom of what happened. We typically 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.120 don't recommend people go listen to other things that it's 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.280 not us. But that's how good it is, right, yeah, exactly, 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:38.560 it is that good. Uh, it's way better than I 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:43.080 actually um. But he finds the Dr. Freeman's notes on 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:47.200 his case and apparently a stepmother pled her case to 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:51.119 get him lobotomized by pointing out that he day dreams 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.680 a lot, and when you ask him what he's daydreaming about, 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.080 he says, I don't know. Uh, he doesn't want to 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.480 go to bed, and when he does he sleeps well. 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.040 In my personal favorite, he turns on the lights in 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:08.040 rooms when there's broad daylight streaming in unbelievable. I know 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.360 that kid deserves the lobotomy, but one of the things 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:12.920 that I think one of the reasons why you and 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:17.200 I both look up to Howard Dolly was because he 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.800 has wondered his whole life how different would he be? 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:24.880 Like I lived hard and fast as a younger man, 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:32.560 right right? Yeah, actually way way harder and faster. Um So, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.080 but I've I've often wondered, you know, how much sharper 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.600 would I be had I not lived like that? But 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:41.040 this is my own doing. It was my own choosing. 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.119 Howard Dolly had to think that same thing, like is 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:45.720 there something wrong with me? Is there a part of 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.800 me missing? Through no choice or fault of his own? 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.720 We should also say that, um, when Howard's stepmother found 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.040 that he was not a vegetable, she just got him 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:56.480 out of the house and he became a ward of 0:21:56.560 --> 0:22:00.840 the state. So he went all around lady so um 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.199 again in the end he finds, you know, there there 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.359 really isn't something wrong within the He's a pretty terrific 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.119 person as as as it turned out, lobotomy or not. 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:12.840 It took him a long time though, I mean he 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.680 battled addiction and various forms of mental illness his whole 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.280 life after this, and uh, I think going this the 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.479 special that air and he wrote a book and went 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:24.560 and talked to his father. After forty years. He actually 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.439 finally spoke to his dad about it, and that seems 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:29.119 to have been the thing to get him over the 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:31.720 edge to not feeling like a freak anymore, as he 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.720 called it. Yeah, you can actually hear him working it 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.560 out in my lobotomy. Yeah, a big, deep voice. Yeah, 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.920 he sounds kind of like Sam not Sam Shepherdson. What's 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:46.440 the guy? Uh, big lebowski, Sam Elliott? Sam Elliott? Yeah, 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:49.400 that's what are you reminded me of the dude. Yeah. 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:51.200 He also had that big mustache too, sort of like 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:56.720 Sam Ello, that handlebar biker mustache. So, Chuck, whatever happened 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:58.760 to Lobotomy's why where? Why did they go the way 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:03.840 of the dinosaur? Well? Uh, A couple of reasons. I mean, one, 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.560 there was a lot of gaining steam with the criticism 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:12.000 of it because they found that they were lobotomizing criminals. 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:15.840 They were lobotomizing soldiers from World War Two because criminals 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.200 against their will sometimes right, But they lobotomized soldiers because 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:24.639 hospitals were overcrowded veterans unbelievable, and so that that was 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:28.960 kind of gaining steam. And then the introduction of uh 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:35.639 thorizine basically everything um I believe that somebody said that 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:41.600 thorzine was to the treatment of schizophrenia, that insulin, I'm sorry, 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:46.120 that penicillin was to the treatment of infectious diseases, which 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:50.200 is a pretty big comparison. So thorzine was developed in 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:54.040 nineteen fifty and as it began to to fall into 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:59.400 widespread use, um lobotomy kind of fell out of widespread use. 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:03.920 Dr Freeman himself he uh, he had one last one, 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:06.879 one last lobotomy in nineteen sixty seven, right, yeah, he 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:10.320