Lobotomy

[Bernard]

I think some day people are going to look back on this and equate it with leech therapy of medieval times:

The lobotomy, once a widely used method for treating mental illness, epilepsy and even chronic headaches, is generating fresh controversy 30 years after doctors stopped performing the procedure now viewed as barbaric.

...

Other doctors used a more primitive version than Moniz, punching an ice pick into the brain above the eye socket and blindly manipulating it to sever nerve fibers.

Lobotomy Back in Spotlight After 30 Years

It gives me goosebumps just thinking about the ice pick technique.

[lindy]

I read the article about that too and I did wonder how much lobotomies and the surgery now done on temperal lobes have in common. Granted, ice picks are no longer used but....

[Elisa]

And I complain sometimes because lobectomys have come so far in the last 12 years when I had mine done. Guess I'm just going to be happy mine was done 12 years ago and not 30 years ago now! :o

[Shelley]

They still do use leeches. Just not in the same way. They are used when an extremity that has been severed is re-attached, and they need to keep the swelling and blood pooling down. The leeches are sanitary, and is prescribed by the surgical doctor if warrented.

Lobotomies are being gloried by television. An episode of House used the lobotomy to silence the seizures of a pre-eclamptic patient. That messed her up for life.