Howard Dully during his transorbital lobotomy, Dec. 16, 1960
In 2007 I read a memoir entitled My Lobotomy by Howard Dully. Howard is a 56 year old man, husband, bus driver, survivor. He was one of the youngest people to recieve what is known as a transorbital lobotomy or "ice pick lobotomy".
His step mother considered Howard to be an unruly kid. Was he unruly? Didn't seem so. Seemed that he was like most 12 year old boys. Never the less she took him to see Walter Freeman. A man known as the "father of lobotomy". He was part surgeon, part showman.
He took photos of himself performing lobotomies and bragged about how he could even perform two at once. The procedure took all of 10 minutes and was completed with an actual ice pick.
Freeman would peel back the eyelid, tap the ice pick with a hammer and sever the frontal lobes.
Freeman began his procedures in 1952 and before his death in 1972, he performed transorbital lobotomies on some 2,500 patients in 23 states. After the drug Thorazine was introduced to hospitals his procedures were deemed unecessary. Additionally, one of Freeman's patients died on the table and he was stripped of his hospital privleges. Some patients ended up like zombies in that they lacked motor and cognitive skills. Howard did not end up like these patients however he did suffer. He was bounced around from hospital to hospital, home to home as his mother in law insisted that he was a bad seed and Freeman agreed. Howard did not grow up like most kids and young men and as a result did not gain a sense of independence.
Some 40 years later Howard went on a journey to find out what happened to him and why. He conducted interviews and obtained his old files. He was able to confront and interview his father who never opposed his lobotomy. His father maintained that he was manipulated and was not at fault for anything negative that happened to his son.
Howard states that despite this he now feels free and has a sense of peace.
Howard Dully holding one of Dr. Walter Freeman's original ice picks, January 2004
My Lobotomy Howard Dully's: Journey
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014080
Lobotomy - PBS documentary on Walter J. Freeman
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