Brain damage

Do you ever wonder how a certain subject or custom developed and who got the bright idea to try something new and come up with a brilliant (or brilliantly mad) solution? I am one of those naturally curious people who has constant questions about everything from everyday life things faced by all to political, social and economic issues. (How/who did develop the system of prison? Who came up with the idea of paper money? How is it that people were able to be persuaded to use "paper" that's not the same worth as a material product? Why does hair remain "frazzled/dead" even after it recovers from a disasterous dye-job?) This is probably why I have books about cancer in my library and am looking to read Vanity, Vitality, and Virility: The Science Behind the Products You Love to Buy by John Emsley.

What has been bothering me for some time was lobotomy: even in the technically deprived past, surely people would refrain from tampering with something about which there was so little information? Well, obviously not.

(I know the five people who are probably reading this are confused as to why a fashion/style blog is venturing into such unpleasant territory. Well, I think there comes to a time where spicing things up is not only welcome but also refreshing. Yes, I could post another series of shoes/bags/shirts that I would die for, but I think you guys are resourceful and can be left to your devices for a while. Plus, (and I may be alone in thinking this) getting a break from all the product-pushing, especially during this Boxing Day-time, can be nice.)

So lobotomy was thought up by Friederich Golz in 1890, who practiced on his dogs and found the results pleasing, as the dogs became calmer. Later, good old Gottlieb Burkhardt, head of a Swiss mental institution, thought it would be a good idea to perform this on six of his schizophrenic patients. Aside from the two that died, the experiment proved to be successful.

In 1935, over at Yale University, Carlyle Jacobsen attempted front and prefrontal lobotomies on chimps and once again, found them calmer after the operation.

But it was Antonio Egaz Moniz who put lobotomy on the map.

He found that cutting the nerves that run from the frontal cortex to the thalamus in psychotic patients who suffered from repetitive thoughts “short-circuited” the problem.

With his colleague, Almeida Lima, he came up with a prodecure of drilling two small holes on either side of the head and inserting surgical knife to sever the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain. He was tampering with some delicate stuff, and rightly thought that lobotomies should only be used in extreme circumstances since many of his patients didn't survive. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949.

Did you know?

Between 1939 and 1951, over 18,000 lobotomies were performed in the US, and many more in other countries.

Info: A Brief History of Lobotomy
Picture: Simpson Crazy