Vidhika Gadia
A lobotomy is defined as a form of psychosurgery, a neurosurgical treatment of a mental disorder that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. It became popular in the United States from the 1940s, through the efforts of Walter Freeman and James W. Watts. It was used to treat a variety of ailments, including schizophrenia, severe depression, and later, backaches and neckaches. The technique was common, approximately 40,000 and 17,000 lobotomies were performed in the Unites States and England, respectively.
A major reason for the frequency of the surgery was the “ice-pick” method, which involved the insertion of an ice-pick like instruments into the skull through the eyelid, to cut through the white matter tracts of the frontal lobe. This technique was quick and easy to perform, not needing a trained surgeon, as a regular doctor could perform it. The method also did not require the assistance of surgical staff. The technique took all of 15 minutes to carry out, enabling a surgeon to carry out multiple procedures in the same day. Another reason for its frequency was that individuals admitted to mental asylums were often “treated” with this procedure before ever seeing the doctor in charge of their case, to ensure that they were easier to handle.
Huge gender differences existed in the prevalence of the surgery, with women making up about 60% of the lobotomized patients in the United States. In France, Switzerland and Belgium, 84% of 1,340 subjects were women, between 1935-1985. This may be because a greater number of women suffered from depression and other affective disorders. However, a major factor remains that any sort of violent, agitated, or rowdy behaviour was not very acceptable in women, both by doctors and family members who insisted on the surgery. In addition, many people believed that after the surgery, women would more easily return to domestic duties at home, than men would return to a job. Gender violations such as the use of “foul” language, consumption of alcohol, aggression, and the neglect of house and family were all interpreted as signs of pathology.
One psychiatrist observed that after a lobotomy "women do the dishes better, are better housewives and comply with the sexual demands of their husbands . . . . It takes away their aggressiveness.” At least one psychosurgeon in the US operated on women whose only "symptoms" were hostility towards the husband, participation in community affairs, perception of the world as "fearsome and threatening", "inappropriate thinking", and inability to have children. This surgeon gauged the success of his procedures by the patient’s return to so-called “normal" activities, including taking care of her house and children. The goals of such surgeries are obvious, to effectively domesticate women, and reduce them to submissive and cooperative objects. These factors together contributed to the disproportionate number of lobotomies performed on women.
A lobotomy is usually seen as barbaric now, and has been banned in almost all developed nations. These bans happened due to the invention of drugs that largely inhibited the violent tendencies of people, along with growing concern about what the procedure could very easily do to a person. An example of a botched lobotomy comes from Rosemary Kennedy, the sister of John F. Kennedy. She unwillingly underwent a lobotomy at the age of 23, as her father took that decision without informing the rest of the family. The procedure went wrong as Rosemary became incoherent during it, and mentally returned to the capabilities resembling that of a two-year old. She was unable to walk, speak, and was incontinent. At the time of her death, she walking with a limp, had a palsied hand, could not speak intelligibly, and remained incontinent. While this is an example of a lobotomy gone wrong, the ones that went right did not seem to help the patient as much as reduce them to subservient people.
Thus, I will conclude by saying that the lobotomy was a procedure that was symptomatic of a few larger issues prevailing at the time, both cultural and societal, and while the treatment and perception of the mentally ill still has left much to be desired, we have at least moved on from the horrifying reality of a lobotomy.
References
El-Hai, J. (2017, January 11). Race and Gender in the Selection of Patients for Lobotomy. Retrieved from http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2016/12/race-gender-selection-patients-lobotomy.html
Roth, R. T. (1972). Sex-Based Discrimination in the Mental Institutionalization of Women [Review]. California Law Review, 62(3).
Terrier, L., Levêque, M., & Amelot, A. (2017, August 30). Brain surgery: Most lobotomies were done on women. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/548523e
The exiled Kennedy. (2011, October 09). Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-exiled-kennedy-486688.html
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