Lobotomies In The 19th Century

Neurologist Antonio Damasio has written significantly on Gage and other patients that he studied on with similar injuries. Damasio viewed Gage's case as playing a crucial role in the history of neuroscience, and stated that Gage's story "was the historical beginnings of the study of the biological basis of behavior". Gage's case inspired the development of frontal lobotomy, which now is a psychosurgical procedure that leads to emotional response and personality traits. On the other hand, historical analysis doesn't support this claim because Gage's injury didn't have enough influence on the development of this practice.

World War I was a war of innovation with new artillery and tactics, but also a deadly war in which approximately ten million soldiers died in or injuries sustained from battle. As injuries increased throughout the war, the need for medical assistance was constantly growing. Surgery is considered an art and like art, it evolved and new techniques were developed, making an injury that could kill someone survivable. For instance, in the Civil War most surgeons would immediately amputate and in World War I surgeons began trying much harder to save limbs. Blood transfusion allowed surgeons to reduce patient death from blood loss because of the ample supply of blood from fellow soldiers. Sanitation improvements led to fewer deaths from infection

This was known to be a very effective means of treatment at the time. The narrator’s condition is a type of nervous depression that can lead to obsessive “fancies” and imaginations. From the perspective of understanding oneself and accepting the present situation’s circumstances, the main character is indeed the sanest person in the story.

The Changes In Medicine In The Nineteenth Century The nineteenth century was one of the most important eras in the history of medicine as many new cures and technologies were discovered. At the beginning, many poor people still lived in houses without proper sanitation, worked in dangerous factories and drank water from polluted rivers. By the end of the century, social conditions had improved, medicine was more complex, treatments were more widely offered and technology was more advanced along with many other improvements. But why did these changes occur?

Medical technology is one change that has led to advanced treatment of mental illness since the early 1900s. Firstly, “images produced by positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resources imaging (MRI) technology have revealed that a lot of the mental

Also during that time period a common treatment for such disorders included a procedure known as trephining. This procedure included chipping a hole into the skull of the afflicted person. This procedure has endured through time and is still used today in a more refined way to treat medical problems like migraines and skull fractures. When dealing with mental afflictions, Ancient Egyptians recommended modern methods like engaging in recreational activities like dancing, and painting. In the past it has also been common to lock up in jails or dungeons individuals who were mentally ill and who acted out. In the 17th century drugs like laudanum, unguents, opium grains were used as sedatives to ease the torment that mentally ill individuals would endure. At certain points in time, the mentally ill were housed in monasteries up until asylums were created and used to hold these individuals.

1. Era I – “Mechanical Medicine” began in the 1860’s. Its focus is on surgical procedures and drugs. The thought was that health and illness are only physical in nature and consciousness is equated to functioning of the brain. Era I thinking in displayed in review of psychiatric care in the early 1900 with the use of frontal lobotomies to cure hysteria. The thought was that performing a surgical procedure on the brain will remove the area that is causing the Hysteria. Era I focuses on performing a procedure or providing a medication to fix the body physically, while Era III takes into account the patients perception of health, their stats of mind and their support

Imagine, a sharp metal rod piercing through one's eye socket and scrambling the frontal lobe of the brain in order to cure “insanity.” That was one of the most common procedures for decades, resulting in risk of seizures and complete mental delusion. Insane asylums not only held patients captive in confined rooms for months on end, but would only be taken out to perform lobotomies, electroshock therapy, and other extremely painful methods to cure their disability. Psychiatric wards were an embarrassing and horrible part of history. The previous solution for curing mental illness was inhuman, because of the way patients were used as test subjects to experiment with mental health. Since the end of asylums, our understanding of the brain has

Howard should not have received the Lobotomy because the Lobotomy is a horrifying procedure. Lobotomies cause a person to be in a zombie like state, violent tendencies, and memory loss. So this is not a safe procedure.

During the early to mid 20th century, not much was known about mental illnesses or what caused them, which was the way it had been for many years before. One of the somewhat common perceptions about mental illness was that these disorders were caused by possession or negative spirits. This can be most likely be attributed to the wide influence of the catholic church and the belief that exorcisms or psychosurgery could possibly cure incurable or intractable mental illnesses. Psychosurgery developed into the more common procedure known as a lobotomy, where the connections between the prefrontal lobe and the prefrontal cortex are cut with the intention of freeing the patient from delusions and side effects of other mental illnesses. Lobotomies began as a surgical procedure which needed to be performed in an operating room, as it required holes to be drilled through the scalp and into the skull. This meant that though the procedure was seen to show some

This one swung the mentally ill person around while he/she was in a harness. This treatment supposedly ‘calmed the nerves’.” (Gray). Needless to say the treatment of the insane was horrid and unbelievable. In the eighteenth century at Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, the public could pay a penny for a privilege to watch the “freaks”; they could poke the caged patients with a long stick (Taylor).

The two psychological interventions that were administered to McMurphy while in the mental institution were a lobotomy and shock therapy. A lobotomy is the removal of the portion from the frontal lobe of the brain. This procedure’s main goal is to eliminate aggressive or violent behavior. This invention took place in 1935 by Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz. However, by the late 1940s the realization those individuals undergoing lobotomy procedures took place without initiative became apparent. Although the methods of a lobotomy have changed the basic underlying idea of neurosurgery exists today in the form of “psychosurgery” (Encarta 2000). Shock Therapy uses electric current or drugs to control psychotic disorders. In 1933, Dr. Manfred Sakel used drugs and instituted insulin shock to control mainly Schizophrenia. In 1938, Drs. U. Cerletti and L. Bini used electroshock therapy to treat severe depression (i.e. manic depressive psychoses). Alternating current through the brain using parallel

     In the late nineteenth century, after the American social and economic shift commonly referred to as the "Industrial Revolution" had changed the very fabric of American society, increased attention was paid to the psychological disorders that apparently had steamed up out of the new smokestacks and skyscrapers in urban populations (Bauer, 131).  These disorders were presumed to have been born out of the exhaustion and "wear and tear" of industrial society (Bauer, 131-132).  An obvious effect of these new disorders was a slew of physicians and psychiatrists advocating one sort of cure or another, although the "rest cure" popularized by the physician S. Weir Mitchell was the most

This historical review article describes how the various elements of anesthesiology were discovered and how entrepreneurs and physicians of the past two centuries have utilized them. The founder of modern anesthesia is discussed, William T.G. Morton (1819-1868).  As a Boston Dentist, Dr. Morton had been in the search for a better agent than what had been used by many dentists: nitrous oxide. Then, he and a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, John Collins Warren (1778-1856) made history on October 16, 1846 with the first successful surgical procedure performed with anesthesia.

The advancement of medicine and technology causes scientists and doctors to find new ways to cure or at least lessen the power of diseases. Although there are staunch opponents of these advancements, advocates understand the necessity for medical research. To this day, scientists are yet to discover cures for diseases and cancers that take the lives of millions of people annually. For those that live with horrifying illnesses, death does not always seem to be the worst idea. Depression and other mental illnesses are known to drive victims into high stress situations and eventually suicide. Over 30,000 people in the United States die annually because of suicide, and considering ninety percent of those deaths have direct ties to mental illness; research must be done to fight mental diseases (NIH). Although first developed in 1938, electroconvulsive therapy remained too dangerous for scientists to use until the latter part of the 20th century. Electroconvulsive therapy intimidates one unfamiliar to the therapy without breaking a sweat; however, the science behind it reveals a safe, effective treatment. The treatment involves around a dozen rounds of therapy, spread out over a four week period. While a patient undergoes the therapy, he or she battles physical and mental obstacles, which include nausea, vomiting, and confusion. The side effects, although uncommon, consist of memory loss and, in rare instances, heart trouble. On the other hand, electroconvulsive therapy shows