The Lobotomy Letters: The Making of American Psychosurgery

Mical Raz

The Lobotomy Letters

The Making of American Psychosurgery

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Mical Raz

Publisher:: Boydell & Brewer
Online publication date:: July 2013
Print publication year:: 2013
Online ISBN:: 9781580467940

Series:: Rochester Studies in Medical History
Subjects:: History, History of Medicine

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The rise and widespread acceptance of psychosurgery constitutes one of the most troubling chapters in the history of modern medicine. By the late 1950s tens of thousands of Americans had been lobotomized as treatment for a host of psychiatric disorders. Though the procedure would later be decried as devastating and grossly unscientific, many patients, families, and physicians reported veritable improvement from the surgery; some patients were even considered cured. The Lobotomy Letters gives an account of why this controversial procedure was sanctioned by psychiatrists and doctors of modern medicine. Drawing from original correspondence penned by lobotomy patients and their families as well as from the professional papers of lobotomy pioneer and neurologist Walter Freeman, the volume reconstructs how physicians, patients, and their families viewed lobotomy and analyzes the reasons for its overwhelming use. Mical Raz, MD/PhD, is a physician and historian of medicine.

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The Lobotomy Letters

The Making of American Psychosurgery

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Dedication
pp v-vi

Contents
pp vii-viii

Acknowledgments
pp ix-x

Note on Archive Material and Patient Records
pp xi-xii

Introduction
pp 1-8

Part One - Lobotomy as Modern Medicine
pp 9-10

1 - From French Neurology to American Lobotomy
pp 11-25

2 - Locating Holism
pp 26-43

3 - Between the Ego and the Ice Pick
pp 44-66

Part Two - Interpreting Lobotomy
pp 67-68

4 - An Active Docility: Reconstructing the Clinical Encounter
pp 69-100

5 - A Surgically Induced Childhood
pp 101-117

6 - Lobotomized, in Good Working Condition
pp 118-133

Conclusion
pp 134-140

Notes
pp 141-162

Index
pp 163-166

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The Lobotomy Letters

The Making of American Psychosurgery

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