Download or read book American Lobotomy written by Jenell Johnson and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2015-01-13 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Lobotomy studies a wide variety of representations of lobotomy to offer a rhetorical history of one of the most infamous procedures in the history of medicine. The development of lobotomy in 1935 was heralded as a “miracle cure” that would empty the nation’s perennially blighted asylums. However, only twenty years later, lobotomists initially praised for their “therapeutic courage” were condemned for their barbarity, an image that has only soured in subsequent decades. Johnson employs previously abandoned texts like science fiction, horror film, political polemics, and conspiracy theory to show how lobotomy’s entanglement with social and political narratives contributed to a powerful image of the operation that persists to this day. The book provocatively challenges the history of medicine, arguing that rhetorical history is crucial to understanding medical history. It offers a case study of how medicine accumulates meaning as it circulates in public culture and argues for the need to understand biomedicine as a culturally situated practice.
Download or read book Lobotomy Nation written by Jesper Vaczy Kragh and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-10-09 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the story of one of medicine’s most (in)famous treatments: the neurosurgical operation commonly known as lobotomy. Invented by Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz in 1935, lobotomy or psychosurgery became widely used in a number of countries, including Denmark, where the treatment had a major breakthrough. In fact, evidence suggests that more lobotomies were performed in Denmark than any other country. However, the reason behind this unofficial world record has not yet been fully understood. Lobotomy Nation traces the history of psychosurgery and its ties to other psychiatric treatments such as malaria fever therapy, Cardiazol shock and insulin coma therapy, but it also situates lobotomy within a broader context. The book argues that the rise and fall of lobotomy is not just a story about psychiatry, it is also about society, culture and interventions towards vulnerable groups in the 20th century.
Download or read book The Lobotomist written by Jack El-Hai and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-02-09 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman’s documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius. The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Although many patients did not benefit from the thousands of lobotomies Freeman performed, others believed their lobotomies changed them for the better. Drawing on a rich collection of documents Freeman left behind and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look into the life of this complex scientific genius and traces the physician's fascinating life and work.
Download or read book My Lobotomy written by Howard Dully and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-09-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this heartfelt memoir from one of the youngest recipients of the transorbital lobotamy, Howard Dully shares the story of a painfully dysfunctional childhood, a misspent youth, his struggle to claim the life that was taken from him, and his redemption. At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital—or ice pick—lobotomy. Abandoned by his family within a year of the surgery, Howard spent his teen years in mental institutions, his twenties in jail, and his thirties in a bottle. It wasn’t until he was in his forties that Howard began to pull his life together. But even as he began to live the “normal” life he had been denied, Howard struggled with one question: Why? There were only three people who would know the truth: Freeman, the man who performed the procedure; Lou, his cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor’s attention; and his father, Rodney. Of the three, only Rodney, the man who hadn’t intervened on his son’s behalf, was still living. Time was running out. Stable and happy for the first time in decades, Howard began to search for answers. Through his research, Howard met other lobotomy patients and their families, talked with one of Freeman’s sons about his father’s controversial life’s work, and confronted Rodney about his complicity. And, in the archive where the doctor’s files are stored, he finally came face to face with the truth. Revealing what happened to a child no one—not his father, not the medical community, not the state—was willing to protect, My Lobotomy exposes a shameful chapter in the history of the treatment of mental illness. Yet, ultimately, this is a powerful and moving chronicle of the life of one man.
Download or read book Lobotomy written by Dee Dee Ramone and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lobotomy is a lurid and unlikely temperance tract from the underbelly of rock 'n' roll. Taking readers on a wild rollercoaster ride from his crazy childhood in Berlin and Munich to his lonely methadone-soaked stay at a cheap hotel in Earl's Court and newfound peace on the straight and narrow, Dee Dee Ramone catapults readers into the raw world of sex, addiction, and two-minute songs. It isn't pretty. With the velocity of a Ramones song, Lobotomy rockets from nights at CBGB's to the breakup of the Ramones' happy family with an unrelenting backbeat of hate and squalor: his girlfriend ODs; drug buddy Johnny Thunders steals his ode to heroin, "Chinese Rock"; Sid Vicious shoots up using toilet water; and a pistol-wielding Phil Spector holds the band hostage in Beverly Hills. Hey! Ho! Let's go!
Download or read book Patient H M written by Luke Dittrich and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-08-11 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1953, maverick neurosurgeon William Beecher Scoville performed a groundbreaking operation on an epileptic patient named Henry Molaison. But it was a catastrophic failure, leaving Henry unable to create long-term memories. Scoville's grandson, Luke Dittrich, takes us on an astonishing journey through the history of neuroscience, from the first brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the New England asylum where his grandfather developed a taste for human experimentation. Dittrich's investigation confronts unsettling family secrets and reveals the dark roots of modern neuroscience, raising troubling questions that echo into the present day.
Download or read book Messing with My Head written by Howard Dully and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Howard Dully was 12 years old when he was given a lobotomy. In this text he shares the story of a painfully dysfunctional childhood, a misspent youth, his struggle to claim the life that was taken from him, and his redemption.
Download or read book The Icepick Surgeon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a New York Times bestselling author comes the gripping, untold history of science's darkest secrets, "a fascinating book [that] deserves a wide audience" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process. The Icepick Surgeon masterfully guides the reader across two thousand years of history, beginning with Cleopatra’s dark deeds in ancient Egypt. The book reveals the origins of much of modern science in the transatlantic slave trade of the 1700s, as well as Thomas Edison’s mercenary support of the electric chair and the warped logic of the spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. But the sins of science aren’t all safely buried in the past. Many of them, Kean reminds us, still affect us today. We can draw direct lines from the medical abuses of Tuskegee and Nazi Germany to current vaccine hesitancy, and connect icepick lobotomies from the 1950s to the contemporary failings of mental-health care. Kean even takes us into the future, when advanced computers and genetic engineering could unleash whole new ways to do one another wrong. Unflinching, and exhilarating to the last page, The Icepick Surgeon fuses the drama of scientific discovery with the illicit thrill of a true-crime tale. With his trademark wit and precision, Kean shows that, while science has done more good than harm in the world, rogue scientists do exist, and when we sacrifice morals for progress, we often end up with neither.
Download or read book Grt Desperate Cures written by Elliot S. Valenstein and published by . This book was released on 1986-05-11 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Lobotomy Letters written by Mical Raz and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise and widespread acceptance of psychosurgery constitutes one of the most troubling chapters in the history of modern medicine. By the late 1950s, tens of thousands of Americans had been lobotomized as treatment for a host of psychiatric disorders. Though the procedure would later be decried as devastating and grossly unscientific, many patients, families, and physicians reported veritable improvement from the surgery; some patients were even considered cured. The Lobotomy Letters gives an account of why this controversial procedure was sanctioned by psychiatrists and doctors of modern medicine. Drawing from original correspondence penned by lobotomy patients and their families as well as from the professional papers of lobotomy pioneer and neurologist Walter Freeman, the volume reconstructs how physicians, patients, and their families viewed lobotomy and analyzes the reasons for its overwhelming use. Mical Raz, MD/PhD, is a physician and historian of medicine.
Download or read book My Lobotomy written by Howard Dully and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-08-26 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this heartfelt memoir from one of the youngest recipients of the transorbital lobotamy, Howard Dully shares the story of a painfully dysfunctional childhood, a misspent youth, his struggle to claim the life that was taken from him, and his redemption. At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital—or ice pick—lobotomy. Abandoned by his family within a year of the surgery, Howard spent his teen years in mental institutions, his twenties in jail, and his thirties in a bottle. It wasn’t until he was in his forties that Howard began to pull his life together. But even as he began to live the “normal” life he had been denied, Howard struggled with one question: Why? There were only three people who would know the truth: Freeman, the man who performed the procedure; Lou, his cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor’s attention; and his father, Rodney. Of the three, only Rodney, the man who hadn’t intervened on his son’s behalf, was still living. Time was running out. Stable and happy for the first time in decades, Howard began to search for answers. Through his research, Howard met other lobotomy patients and their families, talked with one of Freeman’s sons about his father’s controversial life’s work, and confronted Rodney about his complicity. And, in the archive where the doctor’s files are stored, he finally came face to face with the truth. Revealing what happened to a child no one—not his father, not the medical community, not the state—was willing to protect, My Lobotomy exposes a shameful chapter in the history of the treatment of mental illness. Yet, ultimately, this is a powerful and moving chronicle of the life of one man.
Download or read book Psychosurgery in the Treatment of Mental Disorders and Intractable Pain written by Walter Freeman and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psychochirurgie.
Download or read book Frontal Lobotomy and Affective Behavior written by John Farquhar Fulton and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1951 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Kid Lobotomy Vol 1 A Lad Insane written by Peter Milligan and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Come as you are, leave as someone else. In the winding hallways of The Suites, anything can happen--whether you like it or not! Join Kid, the proprietor of this fine hotel, as he tries to hold on to his father's business--and his own sanity. Kid, as he's affectionately referred to, is the youngest child of Big Daddy, an aging hotelier with more than his fair share of dark secrets tucked into the corners of the crown jewel of his empire: The Suites, where the guests are in danger of losing much more than their luggage. See, Kid has shed a few (okay, more than a few) brain cells in his day, which naturally makes him qualified to perform a lobotomy or two. And why let those brain bits go to waste when he can use them to help--or unwittingly harm--his patients? Ultimately, Kid hopes to restore some of his sanity. But can he navigate his sister's devious plotting, vivid hallucinations, and his own crumbling mental state to uncover the truth about his cursed lineage and face what runs rampant throughout the torturous hotel hallways? Simply put, you've never read anything like this. You won't be able to look away. Collects issues #1-6 of the ongoing series.
Download or read book Canticles for Lobotomy written by Robert S. Sosna and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-30 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Canticles for Lobotomy By: Robert S. Sosna For private eye Rashid Sosnova and his wife/partner, Talullah Blackwell, weird cases are nothing out of the ordinary. The Valley of Rabbits, in parallel-universe Pansylvania, has plenty of weird to go around. But when an incident on the yeti-infested Big Mountain seems to connect to a string of bad-guy lobotomies by a vigilante called Dr. Lobe, Rashid and friends find themselves neck deep in a full-fledged bigfoot noir that ties directly to the city’s highest mafia bosses and to Rashid’s own past. The fact that our hero suffers from Proteus Syndrome, the “Elephant Man” disease, doesn’t slow him down, even if he does walk with a cane. Behind that misleading exterior lies the mind of a master monster detective and he’s definitely on the case.
Download or read book Frontal Lobotomy and Affective Behavior written by John Farquhar Fulton and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Blue Dreams written by Lauren Slater and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The explosive story of the discovery and development of psychiatric medications, as well as the science and the people behind their invention, told by a riveting writer and psychologist who shares her own experience with the highs and lows of psychiatric drugs. Although one in five Americans now takes at least one psychotropic drug, the fact remains that nearly seventy years after doctors first began prescribing them, not even their creators understand exactly how or why these drugs work -- or don't work -- on what ails our brains. Lauren Slater's revelatory account charts psychiatry's journey from its earliest drugs, Thorazine and lithium, up through Prozac and other major antidepressants of the present. Blue Dreams also chronicles experimental treatments involving Ecstasy, magic mushrooms, the most cutting-edge memory drugs, placebos, and even neural implants. In her thorough analysis of each treatment, Slater asks three fundamental questions: how was the drug born, how does it work (or fail to work), and what does it reveal about the ailments it is meant to treat? Fearlessly weaving her own intimate experiences into comprehensive and wide-ranging research, Slater narrates a personal history of psychiatry itself. In the process, her powerful and groundbreaking exploration casts modern psychiatry's ubiquitous wonder drugs in a new light, revealing their ability to heal us or hurt us, and proving an indispensable resource not only for those with a psychotropic prescription but for anyone who hopes to understand the limits of what we know about the human brain and the possibilities for future treatments.
