Walter Jackson Freeman II

By: Cody Kriewald

Significance to Psychology

Freeman was an american neurologist who is regarded as the single most important cause of lobotomies becoming so popular from the late 1930s to the mid 1960s.

Early Life and Background

● Born on November 14th, 1895

● Raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

● Family was a wealthy one with a history of medical practitioners in its ancestry

● Grandfather was William Williams Keen, Jr.

William Williams Keen, Jr.

● Civil war surgeon● Worked with several

presidentso Including secretive work

● Credited as first american brain surgeon

Biography (cont.)

● Attended Yale College from 1912 to 1916

● Continued at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

● Studied the works of William Spiller during his work there

William Spiller● Credited by many

psychologists as the father of neurology

● Freeman tried to get hired working with him, but failed

Biography (cont.)

● Moved to Washington D.C. in 1924● Began work at St. Elizabeth’s hospital● Saw suffering of those with mental

ailmentso Inspired to continue work in neurology

● Finished his PhD in neuropathology● Hired at George Washington University● Only preceded his “entrepreneurship”

Psychosurgery: Origins● Less focus on curing

physical ailments as on correcting behavioral abnormalities

● Credited to Gottlieb Burckhardt

Burckhardt’s Work

● First performed between 1880 and 1890

● Worked on same principle of lobotomy● Removed parts of patients’ brains to

alleviate symptoms of mania, dementia, or paranoia

Burckhardt (cont.)

● Spectacular failure ● One patient died within 5 days and

another committed suicide● Two were unchanged, and the last two

became quieter● Psychosurgery largely taboo for the

following couple of decades

Egas Moniz

● True inspiration for Freeman’s lobotomies

● Labeled his surgery the “leucotomy”

● Took cores from patients’ frontal lobes

● Some blame him for the development of lobotomy

Lobotomies Begin● Changed procedure to

separate frontal lobes from thalamus

● Employed James Watts as partner

● First lobotomy one year after leucotomy

● Within the next two month, worked 20 more cases

Transorbital Lobotomy

● Pick is tapped through eye socket and moved back and forth

● Separates the prefrontal cortex and the frontal lobes

● Anesthesia provided by electroconvulsive shock

Lobotomy Becomes a Fad

● No longer required a surgeon

● Performable outside of operating room

● Watts leaves due to overuse

Popularity Spreads

● Almost solely spread because of Freeman

● Drove around in his “lobotomobile”

● Within his 40 years of “entrepreneurship,” he performed nearly 3,500

One Personal Account

● Howard Dully received a lobotomy at age 12

● Given on the direction of his stepmother

● Wrote his account “My Lobotomy”

All Things Come to an End

● Last lobotomy performed on Helen Mortensen

● Her 3rd lobotomy, as she was a long-term patient

● She died on the operating table

To Counter the Controversy

● Jack El-Hai tries to show a more civilized side

● Works to portray Freeman similarly to some of Moniz’s more moderate critics

● He was only trying to help people since no other treatment existed at the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aNILW6ILk

Discussion Questions

● Do you think Freeman had his patients’ best interests in mind, or was he simply a great salesman? Keep his showmanship in mind.

● Can you think of any benefits that may have come from this mistake?

● Is this really such a special failure? What about the popularity of trepanation in the past?

Sources

Dully, H., & Fleming, C. (2007). My Lobotomy: A Memoir. New York: Crown.

Hai, J. (2005). The lobotomist: A maverick medical genius and his tragic quest to rid the world of

mental illness. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley.http://drs.library.yale.edu/fedora/get/mssa:ru.0657/PDFhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014576&ps=rshttp://listverse.com/2009/06/24/top-10-fascinating-and-notable-lobotomies/http://projects.wsj.com/lobotomyfiles/?ch=two