Medical history: January 2008 Archives

An excellent installment of the television series "American Experience" concerning neurologist, psychiatrist, and lobotomist William Freeman aired last evening on PBS and can be viewed online here. The program showcases an extremely dark period of American medical history, in which the poorly examined brain procedure was performed in assembly-line fashion on institutionalized psychiatric patients throughout the country, casually and without informed consent by a physician who had no formal neurosurgical training. The portrait of Freeman, dubbed the "Henry Ford of Lobotomy" by his daughter, showcases a tragic confluence of colossal arrogance and, very likely, a true earnest to do good.