logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2019
33m 19s

SYSK Selects: How Lobotomies Work

iHeartPodcasts
About this episode
Lobotomies -- brain surgeries to relieve psychiatric problems -- are rarely performed today, but they were once fairly common. Tune in to learn more about the controversial history and practice of lobotomies.. 
Up next
Jul 30
How Russia Shapes What the World Thinks
Operation Doppelganger was a Russian propaganda project discovered in 2022, a minor part of the enormous, ongoing disinformation and chaos-sewing campaign Russia spreads across the world through social media. And some of your views may have come from it.See omnystudio.com/listene ... Show More
43m 15s
Jul 29
Short Stuff: Shark Arm Murders
Get yer info on one of Australia’s great true crime cases he-re! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
16m 5s
Jul 28
The Beloved Judy Blume
Judy Blume is more than an author. She's a legend in teen literature for her frank and honest portrayals of adolescence. Today we pay tribute to her.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
44m 56s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2020
Episode 414: Lobotomies Part II - Assistant to the Bone Slicer
<p>On the conclusion to our series on the history of lobotomies, we explore just how the procedure became the most popular mental health treatment of the forties, despite the horrific and unpredictable side effects that came with shoving an ice pick up through an eye socket and w ... Show More
1h 28m
Aug 2021
6: Mind Games - The Dark History of Lobotomy
What do the Kennedy’s (yes, those Kennedy’s), ice picks and depression all have in common? The lobotomy. Decades ago, this terrifying procedure was seen as the miracle solution to dozens of psychological problems. Today, Bailey digs into the dark history of lobotomies and how one ... Show More
39m 43s
Jun 2020
Episode 413: Lobotomies Part I - The Cathartic and the Emetic
<p>On the first of a two part series, we cover one of the strangest medical procedures of the 20th century: lobotomies. Join us as we explore the life of the man who popularized the procedure and just how the medical community came to think that it was a good idea in the first pl ... Show More
1h 17m
Jun 2015
Heartbeat in the Brain, Hole in the Skull
<p>Trepanation is an ancient surgical procedure and we've found the millennia-aged skulls to prove it - each punctured and gouged to relieve inner-pressure and inner-madness. But is such cranial perforation truly a relic of a primitive age or do modern trepanation advocates have ... Show More
32m 21s
Sep 2020
Lobotomies Pt. 1
In the 1940s, Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz received the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking new treatment: the prefrontal lobotomy. His procedure was adopted by hospitals all over the world—but the treatment was controversial, and came to be known as one of medicine’s ... Show More
46m 19s
Sep 2020
Lobotomies Pt. 2
With Dr. Walter Freeman’s invention in the 1940s, psychologists could perform a transorbital lobotomy from the comfort of their office… with an ice pick through the eye. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 
46m 10s
Nov 2022
Surgical history: everything you wanted to know
Why was a transfusion of lamb’s blood believed to cure epilepsy? What surgical procedures could you get in ancient Egypt? And were medieval surgical practitioners really a help to patients – or a hindrance? Speaking with Emily Briffett, Paul Craddock unravels the long history of ... Show More
1h 1m
Apr 2024
Ep366 Lobotomy Crimes
This week, the gals get the inside scoop on a very controversial medical practice. Topics include a forgotten Kennedy, some gross sound effects, and a speed demon surgeon. Grab a glass of Tooth & Nail Stasis Aglianico, shine up your leucotome, and tune in for Lobotomy Crimes. For ... Show More
1h 57m
May 2022
Psychiatry: a social history
Psychiatry: Laurie Taylor explores the social history of modern psychiatric practice. He's joined by Andrew Scull, Emeritus Professor in Sociology at the University of California and author of a magisterial study which asks if we are any closer to solving serious mental illness t ... Show More
29m 10s