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Freeman Lobotomy Essay

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Psychosurgery is often called neurosurgery for the mental ill/disordered. It was said that the surgery could destroy brain tissue and eliminate the symptoms of mental illness all together. Even though it was first used by Gotttlieb Burckhardt it was not a popular procedure until American neurologist Walter Freeman. Freeman had a specific form of psychosurgery and that was lobotomy. Freeman believed that it could cut certain nerves and eliminate excessiveness of emotions and stabilize a personality. The first every U.S. lobotomy was on a Kansas housewife in 1936. The goal and purpose of lobotomy was to help schizophrenia, depressed, bipolar disorder, and other mental illness patients. The procedure is very freighting sounding. The surgeon/doctor …show more content…

Freeman’s lobotomy procedure at only the age of 12. His stepmother is actually the person who took him to see Freeman simply because she wanted to “do away” with him. She told Freeman that her step son did not react to love or punishment, does a good deal of day dreaming and when asked says “I don’t know”, and objects going to bed but sleeps well. She took him to numerous doctors everyone told her the same thing except Dr. Freeman. Other doctors said he was just a typical young boy while Freeman said otherwise. Freeman told her that the only way to “fix” her stepson was by a lobotomy. She informed the doctor that he had to talk to Dully’s father and convince him the procedure would be beneficial. Surely enough the next time Dully’s step mom took him to see Dr. Freeman, Howard Dully would be sitting in a chair with what Dully calls “ice picks” in his eyes. Dully never really talked about his lobotomy growing up but he definitely felt like something was missing from his soul. He always wanted to know more about what happened considering he did not remember the procedure itself. It took Dully until he was 54 (studied for two years, now is 56) to begin to want to figure out exactly what happened, so he did just that. He went to George Washington University and found the clues he needed to know he was

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