The surgery of the soul
January 22, 2021 9:01 PM Subscribe
Dr. Walter Freeman was obsessed with finding a cure for mental illness. Eventually, he developed a technique which entailed putting a long ice-pick like stick through the eye sockets of patients. [Content Warning: Disturbing material]
In 1941, he performed a lobotomy on Rosemary Kennedy, the oldest daughter of the Kennedy family which left her permanently disabled. In 1960, he operated on Howard Dully, a "mischievous" 12 year old boy, one of the youngest people to be on the operating table for this surgery. Dully's NPR interview here.
In 1941, he performed a lobotomy on Rosemary Kennedy, the oldest daughter of the Kennedy family which left her permanently disabled. In 1960, he operated on Howard Dully, a "mischievous" 12 year old boy, one of the youngest people to be on the operating table for this surgery. Dully's NPR interview here.
"He began to travel around the nation in his own personal van, which he called his “lobotomobile”, hawking this new procedure which he performed with a gold ice pick, and training other doctors in his methods. He even performed a few lobotomies in hotel rooms. Before he was stopped and the lobotomy discredited, Walter Freeman had performed over 3,500 lobotomies. His medical license was revoked when one of his patients died during a lobotomy. Nevertheless, he continued to tour the country in his lobotomobile, visiting his former patients, until his death from cancer in 1972."
The Case of the Golden Dipstick.
posted by clavdivs at 9:18 PM on January 22, 2021
The Case of the Golden Dipstick.
posted by clavdivs at 9:18 PM on January 22, 2021
"In 1941, he performed a lobotomy on Rosemary Kennedy, the oldest daughter of the Kennedy family which left her permanently disabled. "
This is an understatement, and the link understates it as well; Rosemary Kennedy was "normal" enough to be presented as a debutante to the king and queen of the UK when Joe Kennedy was ambassador. It's believed she may have suffered a stroke or other brain damage during her delivery (her mother was told to "hold her legs together" for TWO HOURS rather than pushing). Joe Kennedy claimed she had outbursts, but there is little evidence other than his claims; other society gossips claimed she was sexually liberal and Joe Kennedy was therefore desperate to lock her up so she wouldn't wreck his sons' political careers. He did not tell his children where he had her institutionalized. After a few years, he sought a lobotomy for her, when she was 23, in 1941. He did so when her mother was in Europe, because Rose had already said she didn't want the experimental surgery performed on Rosemary. The surgery was such a catastrophic failure that Rosemary, who had been presented to the king, was no longer able to speak, walk, or use the toilet. Rosemary was awake during the lobotomy. Freeman had her speak and sing while cutting (it was a cutting lobotomy, not an icepick lobotomy). When she ceased being able to talk at all, he stopped.
Rosemary Kennedy was moved to an institution in Wisconsin to care for the completely incapacitated in 1949. Joe Kennedy never visited her as long as he lived. Rose Kennedy didn't visit her for 20 years after her lobotomy. Her siblings were told she was "reclusive" and teaching school. The public was told the same. JFK may or may not have visited her in 1958, while campaigning, but the rest of her siblings (possibly including JFK) weren't told of her whereabouts until 1961. When Joe Kennedy had a stroke in 1961 and was no longer able to speak, Rose Kennedy flew the fuck out to Wisconsin to see her daughter for the first time in 20 years, and spilled the beans to all the Kennedy siblings. It wasn't until after Joe died in 1969 that Rosemary was involved in family life again.
And the Kennedy story about founding/being involved in the Special Olympics because Rosemary had intellectual challenges as a child? MOSTLY FUCKING BULLSHIT.
There's a wonderful play entitled Lipstick Lobotomy that premiered in Chicago a month before the pandemic shut everything down, that fictionalizes the story of the author's great aunt (from her journals) and Rosemary Kennedy (from the journals and public/private accounts) at the institution before Rosemary was subjected to the involuntary lobotomy.
tl;dr: Joe Kennedy was a horrifying asshole who sacrificed his oldest daughter so one of his sons could be president, and his other kids never wondered what happened to her enough to find out.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:32 PM on January 22, 2021 [106 favorites]
This is an understatement, and the link understates it as well; Rosemary Kennedy was "normal" enough to be presented as a debutante to the king and queen of the UK when Joe Kennedy was ambassador. It's believed she may have suffered a stroke or other brain damage during her delivery (her mother was told to "hold her legs together" for TWO HOURS rather than pushing). Joe Kennedy claimed she had outbursts, but there is little evidence other than his claims; other society gossips claimed she was sexually liberal and Joe Kennedy was therefore desperate to lock her up so she wouldn't wreck his sons' political careers. He did not tell his children where he had her institutionalized. After a few years, he sought a lobotomy for her, when she was 23, in 1941. He did so when her mother was in Europe, because Rose had already said she didn't want the experimental surgery performed on Rosemary. The surgery was such a catastrophic failure that Rosemary, who had been presented to the king, was no longer able to speak, walk, or use the toilet. Rosemary was awake during the lobotomy. Freeman had her speak and sing while cutting (it was a cutting lobotomy, not an icepick lobotomy). When she ceased being able to talk at all, he stopped.
Rosemary Kennedy was moved to an institution in Wisconsin to care for the completely incapacitated in 1949. Joe Kennedy never visited her as long as he lived. Rose Kennedy didn't visit her for 20 years after her lobotomy. Her siblings were told she was "reclusive" and teaching school. The public was told the same. JFK may or may not have visited her in 1958, while campaigning, but the rest of her siblings (possibly including JFK) weren't told of her whereabouts until 1961. When Joe Kennedy had a stroke in 1961 and was no longer able to speak, Rose Kennedy flew the fuck out to Wisconsin to see her daughter for the first time in 20 years, and spilled the beans to all the Kennedy siblings. It wasn't until after Joe died in 1969 that Rosemary was involved in family life again.
And the Kennedy story about founding/being involved in the Special Olympics because Rosemary had intellectual challenges as a child? MOSTLY FUCKING BULLSHIT.
There's a wonderful play entitled Lipstick Lobotomy that premiered in Chicago a month before the pandemic shut everything down, that fictionalizes the story of the author's great aunt (from her journals) and Rosemary Kennedy (from the journals and public/private accounts) at the institution before Rosemary was subjected to the involuntary lobotomy.
tl;dr: Joe Kennedy was a horrifying asshole who sacrificed his oldest daughter so one of his sons could be president, and his other kids never wondered what happened to her enough to find out.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:32 PM on January 22, 2021 [106 favorites]
He began to travel around the nation in his own personal van, which he called his “lobotomobile”, hawking this new procedure which he performed with a gold ice pick, and training other doctors in his methods.
This sounds like the early marketing of Glocks for police.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:33 PM on January 22, 2021
This sounds like the early marketing of Glocks for police.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:33 PM on January 22, 2021
Charles Nelson Reilly told of his aunt, a hospital nurse, who was talked into a lobotomy by a doctor she worked with, who convinced her it would cure her chronic pain. She was never able to work or take care of herself again. And she was still in pain.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:17 PM on January 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:17 PM on January 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
Eyebrows, I've never spent any time learning about the Kennedys so I didn't know about any of that and it's utterly horrifying. Add to that, the reputations for abuse in institutions like that, particularly in that time period coupled with the fact that she was a young woman who was unable to speak or in any way advocate for herself and all I can think about is how horrible her life must have been like there. I can only hope that my mind simply went to the worst case scenarios and perhaps the reality wasn't as bad as I fear. But honestly, the likelihood is that she suffered some form(s) of abuse while there.
posted by NotTheRedBaron at 10:50 PM on January 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by NotTheRedBaron at 10:50 PM on January 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
The NPR Howard Dully interview is riveting.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:11 PM on January 22, 2021
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:11 PM on January 22, 2021
.
posted by firstdaffodils at 11:22 PM on January 22, 2021
posted by firstdaffodils at 11:22 PM on January 22, 2021
"He began to travel around the nation in his own personal van, which he called his 'lobotomobile'..."
"The word is found nowhere in Freeman’s voluminous published and unpublished writings, including the correspondence, autobiography, memos, and notes he left to the archives at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Its earliest appearance in print seems to be in an account of one of Freeman’s patient-tracking road trips on page 246 of David Shutts’s 1982 book Lobotomy: Resort to the Knife: “Still uncomfortable from surgery but able to drive, he headed southeast in a newly purchased camper-bus, which could be described as his ‘lobotomobile.’” Shutts’s usage suggests that he invented the word himself."
"...hawking this new procedure which he performed with a gold ice pick"
"I’ve wondered whether as Freeman’s biographer I bear the responsibility to fight the persistent appearance of this legend or others associated with the lobotomist’s career, such as the myths that authorities stripped him of his medical license and that he performed lobotomies with a gold-plated ice pick. They’re all fictions, and they are so widespread it would be a gigantic if not impossible task to beat them down."
- via: Fighting the Legend of the "Lobotomobile"
posted by fairmettle at 11:26 PM on January 22, 2021 [18 favorites]
"The word is found nowhere in Freeman’s voluminous published and unpublished writings, including the correspondence, autobiography, memos, and notes he left to the archives at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Its earliest appearance in print seems to be in an account of one of Freeman’s patient-tracking road trips on page 246 of David Shutts’s 1982 book Lobotomy: Resort to the Knife: “Still uncomfortable from surgery but able to drive, he headed southeast in a newly purchased camper-bus, which could be described as his ‘lobotomobile.’” Shutts’s usage suggests that he invented the word himself."
"...hawking this new procedure which he performed with a gold ice pick"
"I’ve wondered whether as Freeman’s biographer I bear the responsibility to fight the persistent appearance of this legend or others associated with the lobotomist’s career, such as the myths that authorities stripped him of his medical license and that he performed lobotomies with a gold-plated ice pick. They’re all fictions, and they are so widespread it would be a gigantic if not impossible task to beat them down."
- via: Fighting the Legend of the "Lobotomobile"
posted by fairmettle at 11:26 PM on January 22, 2021 [18 favorites]
So not quite as much of an evil caricature and more of a man who was just certain that he knew best. The banality of evil truly is real.
posted by wierdo at 1:28 AM on January 23, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 1:28 AM on January 23, 2021 [13 favorites]
I'm not sure that even banal "evil" is an accurate assessment within the context of the historical treatments and outcomes for mental illness in the era in which Dr. Freeman practiced. This comment from the 2009 article linked in the OP expands this frame of reference:
"This article makes Walter Freeman seem much more “barbaric” than I believe he actually was. 1/3 of his patients returned home for periods of at least 5 years before relapse and although they experienced some character change many felt that the operation changed them for the better. Several of his former transorbital lobotomy patients continued their previous musical careers and became quite famous. Others continued on to be psychologists themselves (from the biography: The Lobotomist by Jack El-Hai). I disagree with both his prefrontal and transorbital lobotomies, however he was just trying to help the patients and fulfill theirs and their families hopes that they could become productive members of societies. His ice pick technique, although gruesome sounding, and sometimes creating terrible side effects, actually proved to be more successful than the prefrontal lobotomies. And he did not just ” decided that there was a simpler way to get into the brain than through the top of the skull”, he was trying to avoid unesseary cerebral drilling by utilizing an exsisting opening to the brain and used a technique created by the italian Dr. Ammarro Fiamberti (El-Hai). He was also a caring physician, visiting his patients until his death (as you mentioned), and sent and recieved thousands of letters/christmas cards between his former patients. I have found these facts while doing a research paper for a psychology class and am in no way an expert, but I feel this article simply characterizes freeman as a villain, when really he was just a man trying to help the mentally ill, sometimes putting the possibility of great success over the liklihood of death or other tragic side effects."
posted by fairmettle at 1:37 AM on January 23, 2021 [4 favorites]
"This article makes Walter Freeman seem much more “barbaric” than I believe he actually was. 1/3 of his patients returned home for periods of at least 5 years before relapse and although they experienced some character change many felt that the operation changed them for the better. Several of his former transorbital lobotomy patients continued their previous musical careers and became quite famous. Others continued on to be psychologists themselves (from the biography: The Lobotomist by Jack El-Hai). I disagree with both his prefrontal and transorbital lobotomies, however he was just trying to help the patients and fulfill theirs and their families hopes that they could become productive members of societies. His ice pick technique, although gruesome sounding, and sometimes creating terrible side effects, actually proved to be more successful than the prefrontal lobotomies. And he did not just ” decided that there was a simpler way to get into the brain than through the top of the skull”, he was trying to avoid unesseary cerebral drilling by utilizing an exsisting opening to the brain and used a technique created by the italian Dr. Ammarro Fiamberti (El-Hai). He was also a caring physician, visiting his patients until his death (as you mentioned), and sent and recieved thousands of letters/christmas cards between his former patients. I have found these facts while doing a research paper for a psychology class and am in no way an expert, but I feel this article simply characterizes freeman as a villain, when really he was just a man trying to help the mentally ill, sometimes putting the possibility of great success over the liklihood of death or other tragic side effects."
posted by fairmettle at 1:37 AM on January 23, 2021 [4 favorites]
He began to travel around the nation in his own personal van
a Chevy Malibu. Really a nice old car.
posted by flabdablet at 2:28 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
a Chevy Malibu. Really a nice old car.
posted by flabdablet at 2:28 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
The Kennedy family amounts to a net negative in American history. Even the positive is vastly overstated because of the assassination of two otherwise mediocre white men. Bad people.
posted by spitbull at 2:33 AM on January 23, 2021
posted by spitbull at 2:33 AM on January 23, 2021
Eh, by getting assassinated JFK ended up doing a lot of good in that there was nearly zero chance the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have passed otherwise. Much of Johnson's Great Society push would not have happened without the rose colored glasses for which JFK was remembered.
There's also a decent chance the Cuban Missile Crisis would have ended poorly for the world as a whole in any other timeline. It pretty much only happened the way it did because of JFK getting fucked with the Bay of Pigs and his unwillingness to listen to the military begging him to let them launch a full scale invasion. We only learned later that there were already operational nuclear missiles on the island. The chance of Nixon turning down that advice was essentially zero.
I'm not going to say JFK was good, but his force of will (and at least one Soviet submariner) did very likely keep us from global thermonuclear war before most of us even had the chance to be born.
posted by wierdo at 3:17 AM on January 23, 2021 [11 favorites]
There's also a decent chance the Cuban Missile Crisis would have ended poorly for the world as a whole in any other timeline. It pretty much only happened the way it did because of JFK getting fucked with the Bay of Pigs and his unwillingness to listen to the military begging him to let them launch a full scale invasion. We only learned later that there were already operational nuclear missiles on the island. The chance of Nixon turning down that advice was essentially zero.
I'm not going to say JFK was good, but his force of will (and at least one Soviet submariner) did very likely keep us from global thermonuclear war before most of us even had the chance to be born.
posted by wierdo at 3:17 AM on January 23, 2021 [11 favorites]
Not to mention the whole PT-109 story, though it starts with mediocrity from all directions, the way it ended up was anything but.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 3:24 AM on January 23, 2021
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 3:24 AM on January 23, 2021
If you have Amazon Prime, I do highly recommend episode two of the first season of Lore. Written by Glen Morgan and filmed in black and white, it's a compelling version of Walter Freeman's story, and probably the best episode of the series.
posted by Katemonkey at 3:41 AM on January 23, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Katemonkey at 3:41 AM on January 23, 2021 [6 favorites]
Last Podcast on the Left also did a series on lobotomies if you need a bit of dark humor to take the edge off the inhumanity.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:04 AM on January 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:04 AM on January 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
No mention that the inventor of the lobotomy won the Nobel prize in medicine? Not advocating in favor of lobotomies, just saying these horrors were mainstream.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:07 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:07 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
Did you know that sometimes it's possible to stop the optical drive in your PC from clattering when there's a disc stuck inside it by pushing a hot soldering iron through that tiny little paperclip-eject hole and wiggling it around?
posted by flabdablet at 5:20 AM on January 23, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 5:20 AM on January 23, 2021 [13 favorites]
I just finished Paul Offit's book, Pandora's Lab, where Freeman was one of the anecdotes of bad science or science that derailed into bad conclusions that he went into detail into, and what I recalled was that in the context of that time, the lobotomy WAS offered as treatment with weak medical evidence but there were other treatments for the brain that made lobotomy seemed reasonable. It's definitely the chapter where I learned doctors used to induce malarial fever to literally kill the syphilis virus.
posted by cendawanita at 5:25 AM on January 23, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 5:25 AM on January 23, 2021 [3 favorites]
Charles Nelson Reilly told of his aunt, a hospital nurse, who was talked into a lobotomy by a doctor she worked with, who convinced her it would cure her chronic pain. She was never able to work or take care of herself again. And she was still in pain.
I hadn't thought of Charles Nelson Reilly in a long time. Yet another of our gay forefathers from an era when you could somehow be obviously gay and famous, and yet somehow still in the closet. God bless him.
posted by Orlop at 8:03 AM on January 23, 2021 [8 favorites]
I hadn't thought of Charles Nelson Reilly in a long time. Yet another of our gay forefathers from an era when you could somehow be obviously gay and famous, and yet somehow still in the closet. God bless him.
posted by Orlop at 8:03 AM on January 23, 2021 [8 favorites]
If you're up to it, there's an episode of the Lore TV series on Dr. Freeman and his work.
posted by tommasz at 8:11 AM on January 23, 2021
posted by tommasz at 8:11 AM on January 23, 2021
Seriously, this is the most screwed up thing about it: In 1949, the Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his development of the prefrontal lobotomy.
posted by Xoc at 8:45 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Xoc at 8:45 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
Syphilis is a bacteria, not virus.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:56 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:56 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ahhhhh my bad. The malarial fever treatment is still true though.
posted by cendawanita at 9:08 AM on January 23, 2021
posted by cendawanita at 9:08 AM on January 23, 2021
Did you know that sometimes it's possible to stop the optical drive in your PC from clattering when there's a disc stuck inside it by pushing a hot soldering iron through that tiny little paperclip-eject hole and wiggling it around?
And if nobody drove a motor vehicle, we wouldn't have had the 60,000,000+ deaths from people being hit by ~cars, we probably wouldn't have oil dependence, so there go the oil wars, we wouldn't have the air pollution, the noise pollution, the visual pollution, the soil pollution, the water pollution, the effects on climate change.
Sometimes society does stupid things because we think it's a good idea at the time.
posted by aniola at 9:09 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
And if nobody drove a motor vehicle, we wouldn't have had the 60,000,000+ deaths from people being hit by ~cars, we probably wouldn't have oil dependence, so there go the oil wars, we wouldn't have the air pollution, the noise pollution, the visual pollution, the soil pollution, the water pollution, the effects on climate change.
Sometimes society does stupid things because we think it's a good idea at the time.
posted by aniola at 9:09 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
STAT! did a 4 part podcast on this topic.
1 2 3 4
posted by kathrynm at 9:34 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
1 2 3 4
posted by kathrynm at 9:34 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wish the second sentence of the FPP had been below the fold.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 9:56 AM on January 23, 2021
posted by Sheydem-tants at 9:56 AM on January 23, 2021
1940s actress Frances Farmer (subject of the Nirvana song) was alleged to be one of Freeman's patients, but those rumors have apparently been debunked.
I hadn't thought of Charles Nelson Reilly in a long time.
I think of him (as he sings one of my favorite show-tunes, from 'Hello Dolly') whenever I'm in the crush of a big crowd, since he was at the 1944 Hartford Circus Fire and avoided crowds whenever possible, from then on.
posted by Rash at 10:09 AM on January 23, 2021 [7 favorites]
I hadn't thought of Charles Nelson Reilly in a long time.
I think of him (as he sings one of my favorite show-tunes, from 'Hello Dolly') whenever I'm in the crush of a big crowd, since he was at the 1944 Hartford Circus Fire and avoided crowds whenever possible, from then on.
posted by Rash at 10:09 AM on January 23, 2021 [7 favorites]
My wife has told me this (the FPP and Eyebrows' addendum above) story a few times. The depths of horror describing how we've treated the neurodivergent and/or mentally ill in this country (and likely around the world) probably cannot be measured. Good post!
posted by JoeXIII007 at 10:34 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by JoeXIII007 at 10:34 AM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
Joe Kennedy was therefore desperate to lock her up so she wouldn't wreck his sons' political careers. He did not tell his children
I think he was really thinking of his own career, then perhaps Joe's. Jack really wasnt
in the picture political wise, even by '41.
posted by clavdivs at 10:40 AM on January 23, 2021
I think he was really thinking of his own career, then perhaps Joe's. Jack really wasnt
in the picture political wise, even by '41.
posted by clavdivs at 10:40 AM on January 23, 2021
I worked in a convalescent hospital washing dishes my last year in college. There was a woman in her 40’s I guess who lived there who used to wander the halls with a grin on her face. I learned from one of the nurses aids that she had been given a lobotomy. She told me that one day she walked past the woman’s room and the woman was standing in front of her mirror doing a Shirley Temple imitation. She suddenly stopped, stared into the mirror with a very serious look and said, “My parents killed me when I was 18.” Then back to Shirley Temple. We live in a very cruel world.
posted by njohnson23 at 10:52 AM on January 23, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 10:52 AM on January 23, 2021 [18 favorites]
Doctors wanted to give my aunt a lobotomy, back in that era. Luckily her father refused (although she was given electro-shock treatment instead). She was enough of an unusual person that recently I found people talking about her on their town's local history Facebook page, some using a rather unkind nickname, but she had managed to hold jobs and live almost independently for her long life.
> And if nobody drove a motor vehicle, we wouldn't have had the 60,000,000+ deaths from people being hit by ~cars
To tie things together: that's what killed her.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:23 PM on January 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
> And if nobody drove a motor vehicle, we wouldn't have had the 60,000,000+ deaths from people being hit by ~cars
To tie things together: that's what killed her.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:23 PM on January 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
Joe Kennedy was a horrifying asshole who sacrificed his oldest daughter so one of his sons could be president, and his other kids never wondered what happened to her enough to find out.
Is it possible you're being a little unkind here with your assumption that the other kids didn't care enough about Rosemary to find out what happened to her? I don't know, but it seems more likely that this was something Joe would have forbidden the entire family from ever pursuing. Perhaps they had some inklings of her whereabouts, but could only discuss it with each other surreptitiously. Lots of families have similar dynamics when there are family secrets involved. I mean, as soon as Joe wasn't able to stop her, Rose went to find her daughter, and it wasn't until Joe died that Rosemary was brought back into family life.
posted by La Gata at 1:38 PM on January 23, 2021 [7 favorites]
Is it possible you're being a little unkind here with your assumption that the other kids didn't care enough about Rosemary to find out what happened to her? I don't know, but it seems more likely that this was something Joe would have forbidden the entire family from ever pursuing. Perhaps they had some inklings of her whereabouts, but could only discuss it with each other surreptitiously. Lots of families have similar dynamics when there are family secrets involved. I mean, as soon as Joe wasn't able to stop her, Rose went to find her daughter, and it wasn't until Joe died that Rosemary was brought back into family life.
posted by La Gata at 1:38 PM on January 23, 2021 [7 favorites]
This "treatment" is featured heavily in Ratched, the recent prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
posted by achrise at 2:08 PM on January 23, 2021
posted by achrise at 2:08 PM on January 23, 2021
This shit gives me waking nightmares.
posted by tmt at 4:12 PM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by tmt at 4:12 PM on January 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
I was probably a bit unkind by referring to Freeman as evil. Given the state of knowledge of the time and the poor prognosis for the mentally ill in general in that era due to the lack of community support, I'm sure he was trying to do good.
Where he went off the rails, in my view, is that he kept doing it even after it became clear that the success rate was very low, it often had some effects that made people worse, not better, and that many cases that initially appeared to be successful proved only temporary.
We've made a lot of progress in treating mental illness and giving people a chance of living in the c community, but it has come at a big cost to those who don't respond to testament and the communities they are forced to live in. In short, it's a hard problem with few clear answers. The one thing that hasn't changed is how good intentions sometimes lead to outcomes that can reasonably be described as evil.
posted by wierdo at 5:10 PM on January 23, 2021
Where he went off the rails, in my view, is that he kept doing it even after it became clear that the success rate was very low, it often had some effects that made people worse, not better, and that many cases that initially appeared to be successful proved only temporary.
We've made a lot of progress in treating mental illness and giving people a chance of living in the c community, but it has come at a big cost to those who don't respond to testament and the communities they are forced to live in. In short, it's a hard problem with few clear answers. The one thing that hasn't changed is how good intentions sometimes lead to outcomes that can reasonably be described as evil.
posted by wierdo at 5:10 PM on January 23, 2021
The amount of people sympathizing with Freeman and those who enabled him in this thread is disappointing.
Freeman was not a good person. He was evil. His intentions don't matter, the harm he caused by not valuing the lives of others does. People had studied mental illness for many decades before he started, and were able to help people through therapy. But he wanted something more convenient, regardless of the harm it caused.
If that's hard for you to comprehend, imagine him coming at you with his icepick, and whether his good intentions would mean much, if anything, to you then.
I wish more people would see themselves in and sympathize with those who were harmed in various situations and would center them and their rights, rather than centering those who harmed others.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 6:16 PM on January 23, 2021 [17 favorites]
Freeman was not a good person. He was evil. His intentions don't matter, the harm he caused by not valuing the lives of others does. People had studied mental illness for many decades before he started, and were able to help people through therapy. But he wanted something more convenient, regardless of the harm it caused.
If that's hard for you to comprehend, imagine him coming at you with his icepick, and whether his good intentions would mean much, if anything, to you then.
I wish more people would see themselves in and sympathize with those who were harmed in various situations and would center them and their rights, rather than centering those who harmed others.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 6:16 PM on January 23, 2021 [17 favorites]
Having seen firsthand how poor treatments for disorders like schizophrenia were at the time and to a lesser degree even today, I don't think it is that simple.
posted by wierdo at 6:49 PM on January 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 6:49 PM on January 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
The other thing that should be highlighted is lobotomy and related surgeries (cingulotomy etc) were performed mostly on women. (Between 60% and 75% of lobotomy patients were women.) It was meant to cure women of hysteria, depression, talking back to their husbands, wanting divorces, having premarital sex, you know -- all those lady problems.
"I think he was really thinking of his own career, then perhaps Joe's. Jack really wasnt in the picture political wise, even by '41."
Well, I said "sons'" to encompass Joe and Jack. :) Joe Jr. was supposed to become president, not die in WWII. And Joe Sr. was already prepping all his sons for politics.
Also, here's malariotherapy for syphilis; syphilis had no treatment at the time and caused madness and death. But the bacterium is temperature-sensitive; if you can sustain a high fever of around 104, you can kill the bacteria. At the time, doctors could deliberately infect patients with malaria, and they could control malaria with quinine. Malariotherapy could leave you brain damaged or dead from the high fever or the malaria, but syphilis was definitely going to do that, so some people gambled on the malariotherapy. Guy who came up with it got the 1927 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:16 PM on January 23, 2021 [10 favorites]
"I think he was really thinking of his own career, then perhaps Joe's. Jack really wasnt in the picture political wise, even by '41."
Well, I said "sons'" to encompass Joe and Jack. :) Joe Jr. was supposed to become president, not die in WWII. And Joe Sr. was already prepping all his sons for politics.
Also, here's malariotherapy for syphilis; syphilis had no treatment at the time and caused madness and death. But the bacterium is temperature-sensitive; if you can sustain a high fever of around 104, you can kill the bacteria. At the time, doctors could deliberately infect patients with malaria, and they could control malaria with quinine. Malariotherapy could leave you brain damaged or dead from the high fever or the malaria, but syphilis was definitely going to do that, so some people gambled on the malariotherapy. Guy who came up with it got the 1927 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:16 PM on January 23, 2021 [10 favorites]
I think it’s easy to get bogged down, in any conversation about someone who did as much harm as Freeman, in questions about his intentions and his fundamental nature as a person. I would like to put forward that determining whether he was a good person or whether he meant well is both unknowable and irrelevant. We know he hurt people. We know he caused a great deal of unnecessary suffering. His intentions and the secret workings of his heart are, to me, not particularly worth debating.
posted by nonasuch at 7:21 AM on January 24, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by nonasuch at 7:21 AM on January 24, 2021 [13 favorites]
I learned a lot about the scientific knowledge of the day, and the politics of who controlled it, from Luke Dittrich's book, Patient H.M.. Dittrich's grandfather performed a lobotomy on "patient H.M" in an attempt to control severe epilepsy. H.M.'s total amnesia became an object of study for the rest of his life.
The book helped me understand how disabled people, like me, become "resources" for the training of medicos caring for nondisabled people.
posted by Jesse the K at 11:25 AM on January 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
This book is part biography, part memoir, part science journalism. I use Henry's case as a starting point for a journey that moves from the first recorded brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the cutting-edge laboratories of MIT. I try to take readers inside the old asylums and operating theaters where psychosurgeons, as they called themselves, conducted their experiments, and behind the scenes of a bitter custody battle over the ownership of the most important brain in the world. I hope that, in some small way, this book reveals the wondrous and devastating things that can happen when hubris, ambition, and human imperfection collide.
The book helped me understand how disabled people, like me, become "resources" for the training of medicos caring for nondisabled people.
posted by Jesse the K at 11:25 AM on January 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
I still find it hard to believe that none of the siblings tried to discover what happened to Rosemary. They had wealth and influence. Why not hire an investigator? How can you accept the disappearance of your sister and daughter?
posted by Sassenach at 12:09 PM on January 25, 2021
posted by Sassenach at 12:09 PM on January 25, 2021
I can't blame the siblings. Family secrets have a way of staying secret as long as the story being told is believable.
posted by LizBoBiz at 3:26 AM on January 26, 2021
posted by LizBoBiz at 3:26 AM on January 26, 2021
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posted by Alensin at 9:14 PM on January 22, 2021 [7 favorites]