When Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz developed the lobotomy in 1935, it was little more than a crude surgery developed as a blanket treatment for mental illness that involved drilling into the skull and scrambling the neural connections in the frontal lobe. Less than a decade later, however, American neurologist Walter Jackson Freeman had refined Moniz’s p ... Show More
Nov 20
Listener Tales 104: Your Grandparents Might Be Criminals!
<p>We COULDN"T skip Listener Tales this month, so we HAD to give it to you one week early, so prepare for a batch of tales that are brought to you BY you, FOR you, FROM you and ALLLLL about you! Today we have stories of parents visiting from beyond the grave, a bladder that serve ... Show More
56m 9s
Oct 2020
Walter Freeman Pt. 2: “Ice Pick Lobotomist”
As criticisms of lobotomy mounted, Dr. Freeman continued performing his dangerous procedure — even without patient consent. Then, with his legacy and career on the line, Freeman spent the final years of his life seeking redemption from patients. Learn more about your ad choices. ... Show More
46m 58s
Mar 2023
Megan McArdle on the Oedipus Trap
<p>When physician Walter Freeman died in 1972, he still believed that lobotomies were the best treatment for mental illness. A pioneer in the method, he was a deeply confident and charismatic man who eagerly spread the technique in America, long after the rise of alternative trea ... Show More
1h 14m