Walter Freeman
From Psy3241
Dr. Walter J. Freeman was a physician and psychosurgeon who was known for his popular neurosurgical procedure, the lobotomy. He studied at Yale University and then attended the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.
During his career he performed thousands of lobotomies and it soon became a well-known procedure of psychosurgery. Freeman started out performing the lobotomies with other surgeons, with the first procedure in 1936. He then continued performing the procedure with other surgeons and alone, but with other forms of treatment, like the antipsychotic Thorazine, replacing the lobotomy it was slowly becoming less popular. In 1967 one of Walter’s patients died from the surgery and his career was ended as he was no longer allowed to perform the procedure.
A lobotomy is a psychosurgery that destroys the connections to the prefrontal cortex. This procedure is mainly performed on patients that need treatment for severe mental illness including schizophrenia, clinical depression, and anxiety disorders.
Freeman is also well known for his ice pick, which is used in the transorbital lobotomy. While seeking a faster way to perform the procedure Freeman decided to use an actual ice pick which was used to be pushed through the back of the eye socket into the brain. Later, the ice pick was replaced by the leucotome, an instrument designed for the procedure, and then replaced again by the orbitoclast, a stronger instrument designed by Freeman.
Freeman’s lobotomy procedure began to spread as he toured the nation in his van, called the “lobotomobile,” to train and educate surgeons in the procedure. During this time there was a lack of effective treatments. Freeman saw this as a chance to allow the transorbital lobotomy to be used to treat patients and reduce the overwhelming amount of people looking for treatments. Many people criticized Freeman for being a sociopath who enjoyed performing the procedure. Then in the 1950’s Thorazine and other psychotropic drugs became favored over the lobotomy. Although his license to practice medicine was take away, many of his patients continued to live long peaceful lives and remained friends with Freeman.
