Title:

Last-ditch medical therapy : revisiting lobotomy

Author(s):

Lerner, Barron H.

Date:

2005

Type:

Articles

Department:

Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health

Volume:

353

Permanent URL:

http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:10019

Book/Journal Title:

New England journal of medicine

Abstract:

Desperate times call for desperate measures. So thought Walter J. Freeman, a neurologist who became the United States's staunchest advocate of the lobotomy between the 1930s and the 1970s. A new book, The Lobotomist, by journalist Jack El-Hai,1 chronicles Freeman's advocacy of a procedure that was viewed by many, and continues to be viewed, as barbaric. In exploring the ways in which lobotomy became part of common medical practice, El-Hai raises questions not only about how we should judge the procedure in retrospect, but also about what lobotomy teaches us about last-ditch medical interventions.

Subject(s):

History of science
Public health

DOI:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048349

Item views:

390

Metadata:

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