SOCI 136F Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Amarro Fiamberti, Lobotomy, Ice Pick
Document Summary
Prefrontal lobotomy expensive and time-consuming: required neurosurgeon, needed large staff during long recovery periods, staff needed to retrain patients to do even basic tasks like eating and could not be left alone for first few days after procedure. Freeman introduced transorbital lobotomy, first developed by amarro fiamberti in 1937: previously rejected as too risky, was simple and rapid procedure that could replace prefrontal lobotomy. 1946- freeman began to use in state hospitals. Wanted to train psychiatrists to do procedure: watts strongly refused and moved out of shared office, went to west coast to train others using cadavers from hospitals, including. Claimed benefits to transorbital lobotomy: lower mortality rate, retraining of patients not necessary; appear normal soon after surgery, takes 10 minutes vs hours to perform. Modified procedure by making a deep frontal cut for more severe cases: placed strain on leucotome (ice pick tool), so created new orbitoclast tool.
