Orbitoclast

The interview “My Lobotomy” follows Howard Dully as he works on uncovering what happened to him during a procedure performed on him during his childhood. Howard Dully was 12 years old when Walter Freeman performed transorbital or “ice pick” lobotomy on him. He always felt something missing from his soul, however, he carried no memories of the operation and never asked his family. This led him to set out on a journey to learn about what happened to him in 1960. The conversation isn’t between an

Anneliese Markus Period 2, Honors English March 8th, 2016 The Great Depression was a time of uncertainty for everyone: rich or poor, male or female, black or white, however nobody’s world was less stable than the mentally ill. The early years of the 20th century saw a major revolution regarding the understanding and treatment of mental disorders. Simpler cures of psychoanalysis such as mesmerism and hypnotism disappeared, and were replaced by more radical and demanding scientific psychiatric treatments

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