First is a picture of the freak Walter Freeman and then a collection of his psychopathic mutilations done to hundreds of people not that long ago in the United States.
I put the info after as it's long read and some people care more for quick info with pics
Before he became a doctor: 
After becoming a doctor: 
Some written dialogue about the lobotomy: 
A 12 year old boy in the process of having his Lobotomy: 
The Psychopath at work mutilating human brains: 
Methods: 
Walter Freeman Info Walter Freeman lifted the patient's eyelid and inserted an ice pick-like instrument called a leucotome through a tear duct. A few taps with a surgical hammer breached the bone. Freeman took a position behind the patient's head, pushed the leucotome about an inch and a half into the frontal lobe of the patient's brain, and moved the sharp tip back and forth. Then he repeated the process with the other eye socket.
Freeman kept records of 3,439 lobotomies he performed over his long career, and he promoted the procedure to more than 55 hospitals in 23 states. At AMA meetings, he set up graphic exhibits and used hand-held clackers to draw audiences.
In all, lobotomies were used on 40,000 to 50,000 Americans between 1936 and the late 1950s. Freeman believed lobotomies worked because the procedure severed connections between the frontal lobes of the brain and the thalamus, thought to be the seat of human emotion, which the mentally ill apparently had in overabundance. Although his theories have been discredited, Freeman was one of the few psychiatrists of his era who believed that mental illness had a physical biological component.
Freeman attended Yale and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, then studied neurology and psychiatry in Europe. Motivated by the tragedy of wasted lives in mental hospitals, he introduced insulin shock therapy and ECT for patients at George Washington University Hospital in Washington DC, where he served on the faculty. He also had a private practice and was director of the laboratories at St Elizabeth's Hospital.
Upon finding out that chimpanzees became subdued when their frontal lobes were damaged, and spurred into action by Portuguese neurologist Egas Monisz' experiments on people, he and colleague James Watts started practicing on brains from the hospital morgue, and in 1936 they were ready for their first patient, a Mrs Hammatt, 63, who suffered from agitated depression and sleeplessness. The technique of entering the frontal lobes through the eye sockets was still far off into the future. Instead, they drilled six holes into the top of her skull.
According to Freeman, Mrs Hammet emerged transformed, able to "go to the theatre and really enjoy the play ... " She lived another five years.
Freeman and Watts claimed 52 percent of their first 623 surgeries yielded "good" results, but they did not offer a clinical yardstick for what constituted an improvement. Patients often had to be retaught how to eat and use the bathroom. Relapses were common, and three percent died from the procedure. The most famous Freeman-Watts failure was JFK's sister, Rosemary Kennedy, who needed full-time care for 64 years (she died in Jan 2005).
Nevertheless, hospitals were willing to put up with lobotomies and all their shortcomings for no other apparent reason than post-operation lethargic patients were easier to care for than pre-operation emotionally-charged ones.
In 1967, Freeman performed a lobotomy on one of his original patients in Berkeley, California. He severed a blood vessel, and the patient died three days later. This effectively brought his career full circle. During the last five years of his life, he performed no more lobotomies. He died from cancer in 1972, age 76.
Comment by an individual who had read the article...
Freeman and his lobotomy supporters should have been retroactively tried in a high court for crimes against all humanity for their "work" in lobotomy. And subsequently sent to prison for a nice long time. Lobotomy is an evil, distasteful thing to do to someone, I don't care how severely mentally ill someone is. Under the US Constitution, it would be considered a "cruel and unusual" form of punishment if used for behavioral control. Many lobotomies (probably most) were actually performed for purposes of behavioral control or punishment for distressed, agitated patients, not to actually treat an Axis One psychiatric illness.
On the other hand, I do agree that the past problem of lobotomy should not be used as a scare tactic not to do Neurology-quality research on possible "minimally invasive" brain surgeries that could help severe, refractory mental illnesses. One of these is the VNS implant, currently being explored for refractory depression. Another is the Deep Brain Stimulation implant, which is currently FDA approved for Parkinson's, but could have benefit for severe refractory OCD. We as a society should not shy away from further research on these modern, high tech type brain surgeries. And they should always be totally 100% voluntary...no exceptions ever.
I think any futuristic high tech surgery to treat severe, refractory mental illness should be done by a neurosurgeon, not by a psychiatrist.
Words cannot explain my detest for this man.
