Episode Details

Lobotomy was developed in the 1930s by Egas Moniz as a surgical intervention to sever frontal brain connections for treating severe mental health conditions. Promoted heavily by physicians like Walter Freeman and Sir Wylie McKissock, the procedure quickly gained mainstream popularity because institutional alternatives were frequently brutal and grim. Despite earning a Nobel Prize in 1949, the operation ultimately fell out of favor by the mid-1950s due to inconsistent patient outcomes and the emergence of pharmaceutical treatments. Critics later condemned the practice as poor science that left many individuals permanently apathetic and socially incapacitated.

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