The Lobotomist

A PBS program The Lobotomist reminds us that the “miracle cures" of yesteryear are today’s medical quackery. (It looks like anti-depressant drugs are already beginning to fall into that category.)

In the early decades of the 20th century, before the development of psychiatric medications, there were few effective treatments for mental illness. For most patients, the last stop in their anguished journey was an overcrowded state asylum. While Freudian psychoanalysis and "talk" therapy was gaining prominence as a potential cure, an ambitious young neurologist named Walter Freeman advocated a more radical approach -- brain surgery to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Read more