An Old Timey Podcast - 27: The Gross History of the Lobotomy

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Walter Jackson Freeman wanted to do something *big.* As a neurologist for the nation’s largest psychiatric hospital, he saw patients who desperately needed help. But, absent any major medical breakthroughs, Walter was powerless to do much of anything. So he spent years searching for *the thing* that separated people with mental illnesses from the normies. He studied brains. He measured them. He compared. In the end, he came up with nothing. He was devastated by his lack of progress. Then, in 1936, he came across the research of a Portuguese neurologist named Antonio Egas Moniz. Antonio had just developed a new procedure called a leucotomy. He’d performed it on 20 patients, and it had helped some of them. Walter wasn’t the least bit skeptical. He took the leucotomy, gave it a little spin and a new name, and began performing it with reckless abandon. It would be years before people understood the risks of the lobotomy. Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: “The Lobotomist” episode of American Experience “Rosemary: the Hidden Kennedy Daughter,” book review by Meryl Gordon for The New York Times“D.C. Neurosurgeon Pioneered 'Operation Icepick' Technique,” by By Glenn Frankel for the Washington Post“Walter Jackson Freeman, Father of the Lobotomy,” By Al Ridenour for Mental Floss“My Lobotomy” episode of StoryCorpAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I got offered an AARP card at the age of 29. It's Norman Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about lobotomies. Oh, that's fun. Oh, we're going to have a grand old time today. You know, back in the day, if you had an AARP card, you got 10% off your lobotomy. Ha, ha, ha. That's funny. Come on.

Oh, Norm. They were like, this fellow's name is Norman. He's due for his AARP card. That's the only guess I can make for why I got offered an AARP card. The only guess? That's the perfectly logical explanation. Everyone named Norman, Bernard, Milton, anyone with those names got an AARP card. Mm-hmm.

Starting by the time they were 17, I'm guessing. Yeah. What's another good old man name? Josiah. What? Okay, now we're just... Ezekiel. Okay, all right.

Well, we're... Abraham. There we go. Abraham has a beard. By the way, if you're listening to this and your name is Abraham, and I'm not talking about the guys who go by Abe, you don't count. As they say, I have a friend named Abe, but his full name is Abraham. But if you're going by...

Abraham. Number one, you have to have a beard, full and bushy, my friend. And you probably need to, if not make your living through woodworking, it needs to be a hobby. Oof, I'm jealous. These are the rules. I love woodworking. Hey, I know I'm supposed to do a Patreon plug. Oh, hey, you're coming out of with way too much energy already. But I have breaking news, Kristen. Oh, okay. Hang on, I might have a sound for this. See, I just made one up. We don't need that sound hard. Oh, you know what?

This one will work. Ladies and gentlemen. The very first piece of old-timey podcast merch is here. Oh, my. It's the History Ho T-shirt. If you have the video version of this podcast, which if you're on the $10 pig butter investor tier on our Patreon, you do.

You can see this brand new, stunning, t-shirt. And if you're a pig butter investor, you get 10% off this shirt in our store. When are these things going to go live on the website, Norm? We can't say. We don't have that figured out yet. Sorry, I just realized as soon as I asked the question. By the time this episode comes out, it should be live. Okay. This was designed by yours truly. Yeah. Normie C. You did a lovely job. Thank you. I think I'm going to wear mine to a daycare, a playground. You know, there's nowhere. You can't wear the history. I have applied to become a school bus driver, and this is what I wore to my interview.

This is a tri-blend t-shirt. It is the softest, most comfortable t-shirt in the world, and I demanded we get this style of shirt. The shirtmaker was like, you can't possibly. You'll not make any money on these t-shirts. And I said, I don't care. Everyone, just for the record, that conversation did not happen. But Norm is very particular about his merch. He likes a try blend.

He likes things that are comfy, okay? Yes. So get yours today. All right. What if we sell out of history ho shirts? That would be crazy. It is a very limited run because we just weren't sure. For obvious reasons.

We just weren't sure who's going to buy the history hose shirt. And I think I messed up the design a tiny bit. But you know, let's not talk about it. Oh, my gosh. Everyone, you know, it's not perfectly centered. Okay. Yeah, something's like there's just maybe a few. You know what?

If someone gets... If someone gets offended by your history host shirt, you'll know it's because it's not exactly centered. It's not the content of the shirt. I'll say, man, that shirt was so close to being perfect. Yeah. But now I can't even stand looking at it. I'm going to go ahead and donate it. So do you want to plug our Patreon?

Yes, folks. Patreon.com slash old-timey podcast, $5 tier, a non-threatening fan tier. you get bonus episodes every month of an old-timey podcast with the video version of that bonus episode. Oh my goodness. Plus you get access to our Discord chat. You know, they say that our Discord is popping like a bubble-wrapped dolphin. That's what they say. Okay, someone in our Discord mentioned they used that phrase recently and people had no idea what they were talking about.

Well, that's weird because that's a phrase that people say all the time. If something's really cool and good, you say, yeah, it's popping like a bubble-wrapped dolphin. And we all know that makes sense. I won't check your source on that, but the real value, Kristen, is that $10 pig butter investor tier because you get the signed thank you card and sticker. Oh. You get full video versions of every single episode of an old-timey podcast, 10% off merchandise. Like that history host shirt I just showed. Hey, you get the episodes ad-free too.

And you get the episodes ad-free and early, day early. Mm-hmm. And YouTube watch parties. This month, we're doing trivia. I have figured it out. It's happening. Norm is very excited. Yeah. My dream job was to be a game show host. So this could become a reality.

Congratulations, Norm. Yeah. I am using this podcast as like a stepping stone to my true calling. Sure. I mean, I fully support you. Do you think if you ever do get your own game show, I can be like Dr. Phil's wife. I just sit in the audience and then like at the very end, they show us walking off together. Absolutely. And you walk way too fast and I have to like trot to keep up with you. Yeah. That's what I envisioned for you. Thank you. Definitely. Yeah. Oh, did you envision hearing about lobotomies today?

Did you know how fun today was going to be? I, it's funny. Okay, here's what's hilarious. I was like, Kristen, what's your next topic? And you're like, I'm not telling you. It's a secret. And then we were out on a walk the other day. And we were just chit-chatting, like, how's your day?

How's your day? How's it going? And Chris was just like, yeah, I'm almost done with this lobotomy script. And I was just like, oh, you're covering lobotomies. And she was like, oh, I did not mean to say that. So I knew you were covering lobotomies, but... Listen, after a couple days of just reading about lobotomies, my brain just... Maybe you're thinking of getting one. No, no. Not funny? Not okay.

I don't think you can get one anymore. No. At least, I hope not. Okay, hang on. It depends on what doctor you go to, I guess. Great. We'll be cutting all of this. Is it that bad? Let me get into it, and then you'll decide how about you want to joke around. Oh, boy. Okay, everybody, prepared to be bummed out.

By the way, hugest of shoutouts to an old, old, old, old episode of American experience. I believe this might have been the first episode of American experience. I'm an old man. Thank you. This episode was titled The Lobotomist. This script, you know, mostly comes from that. Oh, I remember when I first saw that episode. and I believe it was the year of our Lord 2008.

Wow. So long ago. You watched that, right? I have seen the lobotomist. Oh, my God. It's disturbing. Yeah. Why is this podcast so bad?

What? Norman. Why do we only talk about terrible stuff? Excuse me. That is not true? Super Soaker episode. We have one positive episode. No, no.

Hey, hey, hey. That one I did about the chess playing robot thing. That was good fun. That was fun. That was kind of a hoot, frankly. A lot of the I Love Lucy ones were, well, no, they were kind of bummers too. Whoops, Daisy. Oh, speaking of bummers.

I mean, not that this would be so tragic, but I feel like we are about to get our asses kicked off of Facebook. Oh, yeah. So Normie C., bad boy of YouTube, bad boy of the Internet. Right here. He did the five-part series on Adolf Hitler, debunking rumors, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Facebook, none too soon, has gone back on our page. flagged it for offensive content, anything that says Adolf Hitler in it. And I've gotten these scary warnings that are like, this is your last warning about this

offensive content. And then they have this thing you go through where you try to dispute it. Yeah. But they don't let you write anything, probably for obvious reasons. They think I'm a Nazi. They don't want to hear from me. Exactly. But I have to like explain myself. And so on a post that was about Adolf Hitler's fart-filled bunker. I had to be like, we are raising awareness about this issue.

That was the only thing that made sense. Yeah. So anyway, you know, support our Facebook page while you can. We are raising awareness. We're letting people know about Hitler's final days. I just wish there'd been a comment section to be like, look, we don't

like the guy. We're making fun of him. We're debunking stuff. I promise. This is what people are about censorship on Facebook. Well, listen, some stuff needs to go. Admittedly, I did think the whole censorship of right-wing crazy-ass talking points was way overblown. But now that our stuff's being affected, I'm with them 100%.

No, no, Norman. No, this is how they get you. I'm diving into the rabbit hole. Oh, geez. No, it is really stupid. Hopefully they review the post and they're like, oh, they're not actually promoting Adolf Hitler. We're talking about how he died.

Yeah. Which is fine. It's historical. That's right. And talking about his farts is just a very important part of that historical process. Listen, it plays a huge reason into his demise, okay? Don't you agree? Norm, this is like that time.

I'm sorry, people are going to be mad because we're not even starting this show yet. But for a long time, did you not believe that you could die from farting too much in a small room? I did. When I was a kid, I read this story on the internet about this guy who, like, he lived alone. He was, like, super overweight, so he was, like, bedridden. And he, like, ate a bunch of cabbage one night. Cabbage and sausage. Cabbage and sausage.

And I guess his house was airtight, insulated, and he just, like, farted all night, and he died while he was sleeping from all his farts. And so ever since I read that on. On the internet, which means it was true. Uh-huh. As a kid, I have been petrified of farting too much. And one time when I was a kid, I read that the average person farts like, I can't remember the number. It's actually a lot more than I realized.

Hang on, I'm going to look this up. Oh, boy. Yeah, this is important information. It's important. We have to get the data right. Uh-huh. Average farts per day. Okay.

Between 14 and 25. Yeah, so somewhere in that range. Okay. And I remember counting my farts one day and I was a little bit over the average and I was just like devastated. Did you think it meant death was near or that you were just a gross farty boy? Like where'd you land? I thought I had some sort of condition. Oh.

That caused me to fart more than the average person. And when a fart smelled really bad, I always thought of that guy dying from the cabbage and sausage and thought, I got to get this out of my system. Uh-huh. Well, I'm glad you're here today, Norm, to talk about those very real serious medical issues because it's right in line with what I'm about to talk about right now. Are you ready? I am. All right.

Here we go. Lobotomy, Labata you. I hate that I laughed at that. Oh, by the way, this is one of those stories. When I started off, I was like, oh, we could do a whole series on lobotomies. It's such a big issue. And then I started to start. started researching it, and I got really grossed out.

And I was like, nope, one and done, my friend. So here we go. Couldn't take it. No, especially, okay, you know this about me. I get really queasy and grossed out by medical mumbo jumbo. Yeah. And, you know, like the stories, the after effects, okay, I can read about that. They can bring a tear to my eye.

But any part of any article that's like, then they took the drill and they did this with it. And then they took the scaffold. And I'm like ready to check the F out. So here we go. Okay. You got your barf bucket. It really does make me queasy. Okay.

Well, if you need a break, it's okay. All right. Thank you, darling. The first link in my Google search is everything you wanted to know about farting. Houston Methodist Church. No, shut up. Shut up. Oh, I think it's a hospital.

Houston Methodist Hospital. Oh, okay. It's like a church. I was actually going to tip my hat to them because it's like, man, if you're trying to find creative ways to lure people in for the Lerd, making a web page all about farts and hoping they'll stick around for the other content, that's not so bad. Absolutely. Okay. Walter Jackson Freeman II was a doctor. And in most families, norm, that alone would be pretty impressive.

But in the Freeman home, it was. the norm. Walter's father had been an ear, nose, and throat doctor, and his maternal grandfather had been the first brain surgeon in these United States. Ooh, what was his name? I'm going to get to it. His name is ridiculous, so hold on tight. True story, he was the first person to remove a brain tumor without making the patient

kick the bucket. That's a huge deal. Absolutely. Also, fun fact. But, okay, well, before I tell you the fun fact, let me hit you with this man's name. Yeah. This should be illegal to name someone this. William Williams Keene.

William Williams Keene. The Keen I have no problem with. William Williams? Well, don't you remember from the John Brown episode, one of the Knight Patrolmen in Harper's Ferry was named William Williams? Why? Why? Bill Bill. That's ridiculous.

Bill, Billy. You know what it reminds me of. What? You know what I'm going to say, right? No. It reminds me of that storyline from 90-day fiancé, from the woman who was clearly being catfished by a guy. Oh, Williams. He said his name was Williams.

I will always love Williams. And her children were like, Mom, that's not even a name. Like Williams is like, everything about this is suspicious. Yeah. Yeah. And she was like, oh, he has this sexy. English accent. Oh my gosh.

And then they played a clip of him on the phone. That was not a British accent. She was like, hey Williams. And he was like, hello baby. How are you? And I was like, ah, this poor woman is definitely being catfished. No, I say her poor children. Because she, all she knew was she was in love with some hot British dude named Williams.

Her children knew, though. And they were just like, like any adult child would be like, oh dear God, how do I stop this adult woman? In the picture that he presented as himself, it was like the British version of Dave Bautista. Who's Dave Bautista? Are you talking about athletes now? He's the wrestler.

He's like an actor, too. Oh. No? No, I'm sorry. I'm probably the only person who's not heard of this fella. Okay. Anyway, tell me more about William Williams Keene. William Williams Kean treated six U.S. presidents, baby.

Oh, like who? Oh, I didn't write them all down. One of them, I think it was FDR before he became president. You know, because you can't treat him all in office. Who's going to live that long? Right. Well, probably some weirdo. Did he operate on Garfield?

Was he the reason Garfield died? No, I don't think so. But he, oh, who was the president who had the secret operation on the boat? You know what I'm talking about? Hmm. Yeah, I can't remember. This is going to be the most infuriating episode for people because they're going to be shouting the answers. And here we are.

Just sit and learning about farts from the Methodist Church. Yeah, so far this is the worst episode in an old tiny podcast. Hey, he was also the president of the American Medical Association at one time. So that's cool. Oh, yeah. Okay, so well-respected doctor, brain surgeon. A bit of a pioneering doctor. He was also a bit of a showboat.

He liked to perform surgery in front of a big crowd so that everyone could see how cool and good he was at surgery. Did he do celebration dances when he made a cut? And that's what made it all so dangerous because sometimes he'd be like, I've got to take that choreography again. He's showboating, you know? In other words, William Williams Keene was a legendary legend star, and his grandson, Walter Jackson Freeman I, wanted very much to find. follow in his footsteps. Young Walter wanted to be at least as legendary as his grandfather had been. And to his credit, Walter got off to a great start.

Walter. He graduated. Thank you. That was so necessary. We can't cut it because it's just pure comedy gold. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Norma, you look like you have already checked out.

You've given up on this episode entirely. Well, we had some real bad technology. technical difficulties before we recorded. Norm heard a buzzing sound, and he's like, he fixed it. I think I fixed it. And then he's like, okay, are you ready? And I was like, are you ready? Because you do not seem to be in the headspace to record, sir.

Anyway, here we are. We're fine. It's great. It's fine. Yeah, it is infuriating to hear a buzzing sound and, like, not know where it's coming from. I unplugged everything. It was still happening. But I switched tracks and like the buzzing's gone now, so I don't know.

Maybe the soundboard's on the fritz. Here, let me test it real quick. I'm about to bust. That's not the soundboard. That sounds amazing. Do you want to know what it really was? What? I brought in a beehive into the studio and I didn't think it would cause any problems.

And I'm starting to think that it was a mistake in retrospect. You know, I do have a big red pimple on my side. my neck. I wonder if that's from a bee. It's actually a beasting. I see it. That's kind of my thing to get weird neck pimples. Yeah, am I moving in on your territory? Yeah, please. Soon I'll get them all over my butt. Then you'll be real jealous. I will. I'll be like, that's my sexy thing to do, sir. Okay, we are really off the rails this episode. Okay, then quit interrupting. All right. Yeah, so talk about Walter. So he graduated from Yale in 1916. I've ever heard of it. Yeah.

And he went on to study medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Yeah? Oh, Yale didn't mean shit to you, but the University of Pennsylvania? The best damn track and field team at the turn of the 20th century. Oh, okay. All right. Don't you remember that from the Olympics episode? How could I forget it?

Everything's connected. It's like every time we do an episode, I'm making connections to other episodes. History is just like a giant spider web, Kristen. Hmm. Think about that. I prefer to think of it as a as a jello salad. Ugh. After he studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, he studied neurology in Europe.

Ooh. He married an economist named Marjorie Franklin. They had a bunch of kids. And eventually, in 1924, when Walter was just 28 years old, he became the lab director for a psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C. Moving on up. Yeah. And it was a big deal. He was the youngest lab director in that hospital's history, and it was the largest psychiatric

hospital in the nation. Fun fact. Wait a minute. Oh, wow. Wow. Oh, thank you. By the time Walter began working there, the hospital was called St. Elizabeth's Hospital. Would you like to know its original name?

So it was called St. Elizabeth when he started working. Can I have a clue? It doesn't sound very nice. Oh. the asylum for the insane people of America. Not bad, Norm. It was called Government Hospital for the Insane. Okay, I was close.

Yeah, it was pretty close. So Walter was a young neurologist working in a leadership role at this major psychiatric hospital. But St. Elizabeth's wasn't a good place to be. In those days, psychiatric institutions were horrible places. At best, they were overcrowded, understaffed, under-resourced, and at worst, patients received cruel, abusive treatment. Yes. We went to that psychiatric museum in St. Joseph, the Glor Psychiatric Museum, which also used to be an asylum. Yeah.

Yeah, it was crazy what they did to people. It really was wild. I mean, the things I remember from that museum, like they, a lot of places would have weekends where people could come and just look at the people who were in there. I mean, like a zoo situation and provoke the patients and agitate them just to watch them react. I mean, people were held in these small enclosures. I mean, horrible stuff. And they had the, you know, cold plungers are all the rage these days. Yes. But in the psychics, in the asylums, they would literally just dump people in those cold baths to, like, shock them. Yeah, it's one thing if you do a cold plunge because Joe Rogan advised you to. It's another because some doctor throws you in one. Yeah.

Anything Joe Rogan tells me to do, I do it. What could go wrong? Mm-hmm. That was also back in the time when, like, if a dude got kind of sick of his wife, Oh, she's crazy You gotta lock her up She doesn't enjoy housework anymore That's how you know

A woman is effed in the head If she's not excited to dust Then something is wrong Kristen loves vacuuming I do and that's how you know If you ever stop vacuuming I'm calling the police No, what you always say is

Welfare check What you always say After I'm done vacuuming is So what are you avoiding right now Yeah what's going on with you Yeah, it's a therapeutic vacuum session. It is. Yeah.

From the moment Walter set foot in that psychiatric hospital, he was horrified by what he saw. He walked those halls where 5,000 patients were held, and he saw people in a variety of mental states. Some were violent. Some smeared feces on the wall. Some just sat there. In those days, people with everything from depression, Depression. Depression. Depression is where all the people with depression live. And we hate it here. That's it. I'm moving to depression.

I am getting an RV and I'm driving off to live in depression. I'm not happy about it. Depression, dementia, schizophrenia, a real strong dose of homosexuality. That could all land you in the institution. You could get committed to an institution against your will and be there for the rest of your life. It was sad and disturbing, and none of it sat right with Walter Freeman. He didn't like the idea of just institutionalizing people for decades without any plan to help them, or put it another way, fix them. Well, yeah, what an incredible strain of resources to take care of. people for the rest of their lives.

And of course you would seek out ways to try to help people. Well, and they were overcrowded. You walk those halls and you realize we're not really taking care of anybody. Yeah. This is just like a holding ground. It's like a miserable.

Yeah, it's like a prison for the mentally unwell. Yeah. To be fair, the doctors at these psychiatric facilities were trying stuff. You know, like nobody, well, I'm sure some assholes didn't care, but, you know, People want to help. They want to move the needle in some way. But, oof, it was just a bunch of bad ideas being thrown around.

Ooh, can we hear some? In the 1930s, shock therapy was the new thing. Researchers believed that mentally ill patients just needed to have their brains, you know, rerouted a bit. So they administered drugs that would give a patient terrible seizures. That's not what I was thinking when you said shock therapy. These seizures often injured the patient and scared the shit out of them. Yeah. Another common practice was to give the patient a near-lethal dose of insulin. Oh.

The result was that the patient would almost die and then be fixed, kind of. These treatments were horrific for the patient. They were terrifying and traumatizing. But, you know, sometimes afterward the patient would be a little calmer, and the calmness would last a little while. Is that really more of like, don't want to go through that again? There might have been some effect. But also, yeah, if I know that that's the treatment I'm going to receive, I'll fall in line. Like, what do I have to do?

When you said shock therapy, I was thinking, like, when they literally, like, put electrodes on your... brain and shogga, which is actually been proven to help with extreme cases of depression. Even today, I think that's still used in some hospitals. And that might have been another thing that they were doing at this time. When you said make them have seizures and huge doses of insulin, yeah, different form of shock. Yeah. For Walter, this wasn't enough. He wasn't dismissive of shock therapy.

it was clear that shock therapy had some effect on patients. But, you know, Walter wanted to do something more. He couldn't shake this feeling that there was something physical that caused mental illness. If he could just figure out what that physical problem was, then maybe through surgery he could fix the problem. Walter spent a ton of time in the St. Elizabeth's Hospital morgue, studying the brains of deceased patients. He hoped... What the hell was that? Sorry, my foot scraped on the chair. Was that a fart? Are we about to die because we're in a small enclosed room?

Nope. Nope. That was my foot scraping. And even if it was a fart, this house is so old. There is air gaps everywhere. We will be able to live and breathe. That's the only reason we bought this house. We didn't want some airtight new number.

Yeah. If the apocalypse ever comes and I'm sent down to like a bunker, I am concerned. I could kill people. There ain't enough a breeze in the world, buddy. You know, when it's cabbage and sausage night in the bunker, I don't know who came up with that idea for the menu, but bad idea. So he studied the brains of deceased patients, and he kept hoping that if he studied long enough,

he'd eventually find the thing that caused the mental illness, and from there it'd only be a matter of time before he could remove that thing. He's thinking he can physically see something in the brain that's like depression. Yeah. And he can take his little exacto knife and knock it out. And then, ta-da, I don't have depression anymore because you cut it out of my brain. Yeah. I get it.

Be great. That would be amazing if that's how it worked. Walter studied and studied and studied and studied hoping and hoping to find the thing. He looked at brains. He measured brains. He looked at blood, he swished it, searching for the thing that separates people with mental illnesses from the normies. Imagine if depression was like just a big pimple on you. Okay.

Like, you're like, I have depression and it's just like this pimple. And the more depressed you get, the bigger the pimple gets. Oh, Lord. So I just pop it. Ew. Depression goes away. But sometimes when you fiddle with those things, it makes it work. So you really got to go to the pros for it.

Yep. And that's why I am subscribed to the proactive solution. Oh, boy. Okay, yeah. This is our sponsor right here. Did you use proactive growing up? I used it in my 20s, I think. You know, the commercials were so good.

If you're a young stud listening to this podcast, man, you missed out on a lot of great proactive commercials. That made you think, like, if you use proactive, the proactive solution. The proactive solution. It would be the solution to all of life's problems. Yeah, there'd be people on there that was just like, I had so much acne. My grades were terrible. Everyone pointed and laughed at me. I shit my pants regularly.

But then I got the proactive solution. My brother and sister both had the proactive solution. I didn't need it. My face was just naturally clear and beautiful. Okay. Congratulations, Norm. On behalf of the pimpled population. Hey, look at this thing on my neck. I know. It, you know.

You think it's funny. It kind of. It's a little schadenfreude in you. You're taking pleasure in this, in my misery of this pimple on my neck. As the one who invests a lot of time and effort into skin care, meanwhile, you just, you know, maybe splash some water on that face of yours, it does give me a little, little satisfaction to see you. a pimple talking to me

from the side of your neck The other day I went to Kristen I was like do you have any like skin moisturizer and you were like you mean lotion? Yeah this is. I was like yeah that's it lotion. You said it just like that

like a serial killer. Yeah. Do you have any skin moisturizer for human purposes on a real living corpse? I mean I've said too much

It's not for me. Anyway, so Walter was doing all this work, but he couldn't find anything. It was devastating. All that work for nothing. He was really hard on himself. He felt like he'd wasted a bunch of time. So he was just like looking at dead bodies and cutting him open and looking at their brains and goo. Measuring, photographing, you know, just trying to find something.

He was devastated kind of for two reasons. For one thing, he genuinely wanted to. wanted to help people. He was surrounded all day long by people who were in a lot of distress in a really bad situation and he wanted to help them. But he also genuinely wanted the fame and acclaim and accolades that would come from helping people. So by the mid-1930s, Walter Freeman found himself where he didn't want to be. He wasn't that promising young doctor anymore. He was pushing 40 and he hadn't made a major medical breakthrough. In fact, he hadn't made any medical breakthroughs.

Yeah, and basically by the time you're 40, life's over, so... Thanks, Norm. Really appreciate that. Everyone will be celebrating my 39th birthday in a few weeks. I can't wait. Yeah, yeah. You got something real fun planned for me, like a funeral for me. We're going to measure you for your coffin.

Oh, great. They give you ice cream cone at the end. I would hope. To cheer you up, you know. So he's feeling like he hasn't accomplished anything. And who knows? Maybe he got afraid. Afraid that if he didn't find something quickly,

then he might wind up with the very thing he didn't want. A respectable but unremarkable career. I know. This is all feeling a little too real, frankly. Hey, there's nothing wrong, Walter, with just being a doctor. To him there is. He wants to make a big impact. He wants to be on the level that his grandfather was on.

He wants to be just like William Williams Keen. We all do. Who was a showboat and surgeon and had an alternative rock band. You think that's a good name for an alternative rock band? Well, the band was called Keene based on his last name. They have a lot of hits. All right. I know nothing about this.

And if you have a minute, why don't we go? Talking about it somewhere only we know. Big keen fan. Well, apparently I am. I could have sworn to you that I'd never heard of them in my life, but then you started singing that song. Walter couldn't just be unremarkable. So he kept searching.

He kept looking for that thing. And then, in the spring of 1936, everything changed. He picked up an obscure monograph, which a monograph is not a word that I was familiar with, but they threw that out there in the documentary like we all knew it well. It's basically a little pamphlet thing. And it was titled, How I Came to Perform Frontal Lucotomy. D-T-D-D-D-D-D-D-D. Who wrote it?

It was written by a Portuguese neurologist named Unto-Ti-Ectom. Antonio Agas Moniz. Antonio believed something that was kind of in line with what Walter had been thinking, that surgical intervention could help people with mental illnesses. Antonio had a theory that people who have mental illnesses kind of get stuck or obsessed with certain ideas, and they'd go around and round in a loop, just obsessed, obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. And he was pretty sure that the problem was in the frontal lobes of the brain. And he was not alone in thinking that way.

medical professionals had known for years that this weird thing could happen where, you know, someone could sustain some kind of injury or damage to their frontal lobes. Yeah. And their personality would change. Sometimes they'd be more calm, more docile. Okay, now you're nodding along. Mm-hmm. What are you thinking? You're thinking about that railroad guy, right?

Yeah, a railroad worker got a iron tamping rod blasted through his frontal lobe, and he survived. and people said his personality was different. Wild. This creeps me out. Antonio figured that if he could just snip the part of the brain that led to obsession and aggression and really strong emotions, then he might really help his patients who suffered from mental illnesses. Because then, hear me out, then their brains would have to find new neural pathways, and hopefully those new neural pathways would lead to better emotional states.

So he's like shutting down a road. Yeah. And you're in a little car, a little Volkswagen Beetle, and you've got to find a new route. Yeah. Yeah. You've been on Ghost Valley number four this whole time. We're going to put you on the Mario Kart circuit number one. And you're going to enjoy that a lot better because it's so much easier.

That's a very easy course. I know you hate Ghost Valley. I do. I'm so bad at it. In his little monograph, Antonio, reported the gross details. Sorry, that was just me talking. I'm sure any medical professional would be totally fun. I don't think Antonio was like, here are the gross details of my surgery. Grab a bucket and a mop for this gross detail. For this gross-ass detail. He talked about how he'd had

20 patients, wheeled them in for surgery, scooped him and sliced them. And Bing, Bang, Boom, about a third of them were better after the surgery. You like how I just kind of skipped past what he actually did to people. Yeah, I was going to say, scooped and sliced. Listen. You're not looking like he took an ice cream scoop and... Well, okay. Cut a hole in their head and scooped out some brains.

Now you're forcing me to be grosser, Norm. Some source, I can't remember which, because I'm pretty sure I shut that book, referred to it as coring. Mm. Which, to me, that's like, that's very ice cream scoopy, and I don't approve. Okay. Just make sure you don't use the same ice cream scoop for both. That's the main concern.

Yeah, don't eat, don't use the same skim. This ice cream tastes like shit. So yeah, he did his little surgery and Bing, Bang, Boom. About a third of the patients were, you know, better. Eureka, question mark. Now when you say better, does he just mean they're not acting the same way anymore? Let's see, shall we? Okay.

And truly, let's see, because I didn't rehearse this part of the script. I don't know if that's obvious to people. So I'm learning just along here with you. Wow, this is like a live read. Okay. No, I did it yesterday. I've just got the brain of a goldfish, basically. This is all new to me.

So another neurologist might have read about this obscure 20-person study with its dubious results and been a little skeptical. Been like, hmm, I think we need more data, more information. Or even how horrifying. He was in there scooping stuff because he had a feeling. Do you think other neurologists felt that way at the time? Do you think they were horrified or do you think? Yeah, I do. I do think other doctors were a little horrified.

But, you know, Walter Freeman was not skeptical. For Walter Freeman, this was the answer he'd been looking for. It backed up what he'd always believed but hadn't been able to prove that brain surgery could cure mental illness or, you know, at least improve the lives of his patients. Maybe it'd be too much to think it could be a cure. But what about an improvement? No one's mad about improvements, right? No one. So he decided to get started. Except your haters. Your haters don't like you improving. It's true. It's true. They're always after me. That's right. So he got started. Worth noting, Walter was a neurologist. He wasn't a neurosurgeon. He wasn't

licensed to perform surgery. So he teamed up with a neurosurgeon. named James Watts. And in essentially no time, they modified the technique that Antonio Egas had used in Portugal. Did they, though? I mean, some sources say they, you know, just kind of took it and started doing it. But according to the documentary, the lobotomist, Walter and James did put a little spin on the surgery by cutting the nerves that connect the frontal lobes to the thalamus. Oh, no. He's turning gray, folks.

They did that because Walter was pretty sure that the thalamus is what generates our emotions. He's pretty sure? Well, you know, it's not an exact science. You wish it was, don't you? No, they're figuring shit out. Sure, yeah. Let's figure it out on live patients. It's tough.

How far do you go to try to figure something out? I would hope not this far, but spoiler alert. We're going there, baby. So he's not cutting out the frontal lobe. He's just severing the nerves that communicate with the frontal lobe. Yeah. So he was thinking, if patients came in having really strong emotions like depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, then maybe, you know, you just snippety-snip those emotional strings and blam-o, problem-solved.

And, you know, after some practice rounds on cadavers, Walter and James were super confident that they were ready to practice on a real. live patient. Now, I noticed you haven't described how they severed the nerves. Are you going to get to that part? Barely. Or is it too gross? It's disgusting, Norman. It's brain surgery.

It's nasty. Hey, what's history hoes are curious folks? Maybe we want to know how they did that. Look it up, bitches. I'm not telling you. You know what, this reminded me, okay, on my old podcast, let's go to court. I did. Your old, ancient, decrepit podcast.

Wow, thank you. to court. I once told a disgusting story that was nasty to research, nasty to tell. It was about snakes. Okay? This couple, oh, my God. This was the worst. Oh, yeah.

It's funny. It's not funny. I covered murders and stuff, but man, when I think about the one that stuck with me and was the couple who moved into a house discovered it was basically made of snakes. There's snakes in the walls, snakes everywhere. They're trying to, you know, it's like just a small family. with a million snakes. Uh-huh.

And that's how I learned that these particular snakes could live up to 25 years. And they come back every mating season or whatever. I don't know what these snakes are doing. Anyway. They're big sex orgies. Disgusting. In your walls. Yeah.

Oh, I remember that. When they had sex, they would all, like, tie themselves together, like, a big, nasty snake string. Yeah. Uh, anyway. I remember I told people when at the, the start of that episode, I was like, look, I don't like snakes, I hate them, I'm terrified. So if any source that I came across felt the need to rudely include a picture of a snake, I didn't read that article.

And so that's kind of how I have to talk about this lobotomy stuff. It's like, you know, when they got into real detail about, then they drilled into this part of the skull, and then they, you know, sliced it. I went la la la la la. Okay, fair enough. So I've got some stuff, but it's just enough, baby. Okay. To give you a taste of it.

To leave us wanting more. Yeah, if you want more, you've got a Google machine. And then, you know, get your vomit bucket because it's nasty. Yeah. Did you have a vomit bucket growing up? We had a stainless steel bowl that we used. A stainless steel bowl. That's fancy.

What did you have? We had a vomit bucket. Mm-hmm. My mom put a, like, a Walmart. plastic bag around it, you know, to protect the bucket. Sure, it's a precious bucket. So when you vomit it, you vomit it in the bag, and then you just tie it up and toss it out and put in a new bag. You know, Norm, I'm going to be bold and say, I don't think anyone needed that explained to this.

Here's how the bag works. Someone just paused the podcast. They're like, I got to write this down. So she put the bag in the bucket. I see. I do see now. Isn't this a symptom of ADHD over explaining things? because you're worried people won't understand.

Yeah, but you don't have ADHD, right, Norm? That's just me. That's just Kristen. I'm fine. You know, they say we travel in packs like snakes. We live in walls, slither on each other. Oh, my goodness. Anyway, so they're ready to perform surgery. Walter knew exactly who he wanted to operate on first. See, Antonio had claimed that the patients who'd fared the best after this procedure had been the one suffering from agitated depression, which my understanding is that that is like super depression.

So when a woman named Alice Hammett came to Walter Freeman and was suffering from agitated depression, he was like, holy shit, do I have the thing for you? Sign this paper. Alice really did need help. She was 63. She'd always had really bad anxiety, really bad depression, and the death of one of her children, and the murder suicide of her sister and brother-in-law had... Oh, Jesus. Yes, of course, made things much worse. She developed insomnia. She was very, very emotional. She insisted on keeping her house spotless. She was vain. And sometimes she peed on the floor. Sometimes she stood completely nude in front of a window. Oh, yeah. So she had some serious issues. Yeah, she was really struggling. So her husband had brought her to George Washington University Hospital for observation.

And, you know, she was just in a constant state of panic. Under normal circumstances at this time, Alice probably would have been institutionalized for the rest of her life. But, you know, Walter was kind of excited because he thought that this new procedure might give Alice a show. shot at living, you know, kind of a normal life, not in an institution. Yeah. So very appealing probably to Alice and her husband. So you brought up Alice and her husband. Yeah.

What did Alice think of this idea? I bet Alice was not interested in getting this done. You're wrong. Oh. I will do a little caveat here. These were the days before informed consent. These were the days when you did what a doctor told you to do. do, you really didn't ask any questions. These were also the days when it was perfectly okay for a

doctor to mislead or even flat out lie to a patient in order to get them to comply. But you said Alice was interested in getting this done, right? Right. And that's why I'm just trying to kind of set the scene for, I was not to say what consent looked like. I mean, I don't think you can even call it consent when doctors at this time kind of had free reign. And, you know, you hopefully had someone who was ethical and willing to sit down with you and go through the pros and cons of a procedure and, you know, allow you to make that decision for yourself. Yeah. But that wasn't always the case. There weren't real rules around that.

But that's not exactly what happened here. Walter explained the procedure to Alice and her husband and they thought it over. They talked it over with a doctor who they trusted. and the doctor had heard about Walter Freeman and had done some reading on the procedure. And he said, you know, yeah, I'd advise you to go for it. Try it out. So it was settled. Alice Hammett was going to be the first person in the United States to have a lobotomy.

But then she got cold feet. She didn't want to do it. You know, everything was kind of all set up and she was freaking out. I mean, she's already got severe anxiety. Yeah. You saw me on the day of my surgery a couple years ago. I was shaking like a leaf. Yeah.

So Alice is just freaking out specifically about her hair. She knew that in order to perform the surgery, they'd have to shave off some of her hair. She didn't want to do it. So she told the medical staff she didn't want to go through with the lobotomy. Worth noting, this is how consent works. You can withdraw it at any time. And if you're not a douchebag, you respect that. But Walter Freeman didn't respect.

Alice's wishes. He lied to her. He told her that they could perform the surgery without shaving off much of her hair. So that that's what made her agree to do it? Yeah. Obviously it was completely untrue, but it accomplished what he wanted to get Alice to agree to be lobotomized. And so in September of 1936, Alice Hammett became the first person to be lobotomized in the United States. Before the procedure, she'd been an emotional wreck. After the procedure, she seemed good, real good. Not anxious at all, just fine. Granted, it was clear she wasn't all there anymore,

but it was also clear that her debilitating anxiety wasn't there either. Yeah, it's because if you sever those nerves, you're just like a, you don't have any emotion anymore, right? You're just kind of like a zombie almost, like a living zombie. Not necessarily. See, that's, that has been the interesting thing about reading some of these stories is, and it could be that this was done without much precision, but it really varied from patient to patient. Following the lobotomy, the medical staff had the following exchange with Alice. Do you have any of your old fear? Alice. No.

What were you afraid of? Alice. I don't know. I seem to forget. Do you remember being upset when you came here? Alice. Yeah. I was quite upset, wasn't I?

What was that all about? Alice. I don't know. I seem to have forgotten. It doesn't seem important now. Walter and James were thrilled. Eureka! So is it, does it cause memory loss?

Because, like, I don't understand how the brain works, so. Well, I do because I've been looking at this for days and spacing out anytime stuff got too medical. No, so the thing that happened to a lot of people immediately after a lobotomy was they forgot how to use the restroom. Sometimes they couldn't speak. You know, there was a wide range of possible outcomes. But kind of the general sense was you became more childlike. a little more docile. Dossile. That's the word I was looking for earlier.

Not living zombie. Yeah. Yeah. So one woman talked about her mother having a lobotomy. And she said that after the lobotomy, it was like her mom lost her higher intellect. And really, it didn't really alleviate like her mom's depression, anxiety. It did kind of take things down a notch. But she said that her mom didn't sit and read anymore.

She didn't seem to have long-term memory. She was just very in the moment at all times. Yeah. That's scary shit because that's like permanent. Yeah. I don't think you get that back if they... No, it's very scary. I mean, it's so mind-boggling that they just did this

and kind of hope for the best. It's not like a... Because like fucking with the brain is like scary stuff. Yeah, I mean, when you're doing something, that can't be undone. Yeah. This isn't like a Brazilian butt lift where if you're tired of your big butt, you get rid of the... I think even those are probably, you know, they come with complications, but you're right, Norm.

I've watched plenty of episodes of botched. I've seen people come in with their terrible Brazilian butt lifts and they get them fixed, okay? But you can't come in there after your lobotomy and be like, I want to be back to my normal self. Can't do that with the brain. That would be a hell of an episode of botched. So, Walter and James, they're thrilled with these results. Did they slow down to see what effect a lobotomy might have on a person long term? Oh, no, no, no, no, perfect, Norm. Get ready again.

Did they worry that the risks might outweigh the reward? Hell no, lobotomies were awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So they did another one and another one and another one. Uh-huh. And another one. And it was success story, success story, success story. Truth be told, Norm, they were winning so much that they were almost getting tired of winning.

You know what I mean? So sick of win. So sick of it. I'm so sick of these lobotomies are. They're too good. So amazing. Except. They giving them just for the hell of it?

Not yet. You get a lobotomy and you get a lobotomy. Oh, that'll come. just hang tight. Oh boy. Yeah, except oopsies. As time passed, it became pretty clear that the results of the lobotomies varied from patient to patient pretty significantly. In some cases, the patient improved for a little while, but then all the symptoms came back. In a lot of cases, the patients changed as in, you know, maybe they weren't depressed anymore. Maybe they weren't at risk of being institutionalized. But they were like children. They had to relearn how to eat,

relearn how to use the restroom. They could be weirdly inappropriate. They lost their social graces. One woman talked about how, I believe it was her mother who had a lobotomy. If someone in the neighborhood was having a party, she'd just walk in. I mean, truly like a kid. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of, my sister used to do that when she was a little proper. That sounds exactly like Randy. Randy loves a party, loves to get together, very social gal. So yeah, why not? Sorry you forgot to invite me. When we were living in Japan, my sister, I guess, just got bored and just went to the neighbor's house one day.

And the neighbors were like, uh, had to bring her back to my mom. They were like, she talked to us nonstop. We were as polite as we could for as long as we could. Now we got to return her to you, Robin. I wanted hang out with the neighbors. I was sick of me. I used to love our old neighbors. They had a little girl, and any time I was in the yard, she'd always want to come out and talk.

I always kind of liked it. Social butterfly. Yeah, yeah. That's new neighbor. I think as someone who is not a social butterfly who spends all her time indoors, talking just to her husband occasionally in front of a microphone, it's kind of refreshing to see someone who actually enjoys talking and can do the majority of the work. Oh, shoot.

I'm getting to a place in the script where I've already kind of talked about. about it. Okay, but I'm going to go back to this. So I mentioned earlier that one woman talked about her mother losing her higher intellect after the lobotomy. So this is where, to me, it gets complicated because, yeah, she couldn't read anymore. She had no long-term memory, but at the same time, she was more at peace. She didn't hear voices anymore. She no longer claimed to be You know, a lost queen from Scotland. I think that's where it gets sad and complicated. In a way, it did help people, but also took away a part of who they were, you know.

Yeah, I think as this story goes on, we'll just see how complicated it is. So another aspect was a lot of patients developed problems with overreeding. It was like they'd lost their impulse control. But those were minor issues. So Walter and James kept going. They changed things up. They opted to keep their patients awake during the lobotomy by just numbing their heads with Novocaine. This was good.

Wait, wait, wait. They were awake during the lobotomy? You know, I think that's actually common with brain surgery that people remain awake. That sounds horrific. It certainly does. I hate even thinking about it right now, but I think that's true. mystery hose, let us know. Can you imagine? I think it's a safety issue. And they bust out the circular saw. All right, we're going to cut your head open. Don't worry, we got Novakane on your head.

You won't feel a thing. You know the stuff we give you for a toothache? Well, this is going to be all you need. So this was good in that it meant that they could get the patient's reaction to each cut in real time, but it also meant that the person receiving the lobotomy heard their head being drilled into and felt the scapple cut. Oh, okay, I can't do some cutting in the brain tissue. Okay, there we go. But, ble, blah, blah. Oh, well, after the procedure was finished, they'd forget about all those worries. Oh, yeah. Walter was thrilled. Finally, after all those years of research, he was doing something. big and important in the field of mental health. So he was like the leading guy now in the U.S. for lobotidies.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Early on, he attended a medical conference where he gave a presentation on the lobotomy and the results he'd seen. And for the most part, the other doctors were horrified. How could he just test out this relatively unknown procedure on people? It was so irresponsible, also very gross. That was just me talking.

I don't think any doctor said that. I wonder if they, do you think they ever consider testing on animals first? I don't know. Like find a really sad pig and... Sorry. Get rid of the lobotomy and... I mean, you are bringing up a fair point, which is like, how do you know? Well, you know what?

We know that Dottie's a more anxious dog than most. Dottie's very anxious dog, but I don't think I'd want them testing lobotomies on Dottie. Dog, yeah. Dottie's had a real upset tummy lately. Yeah. We went to the baseball game yesterday, came home, and we are finding poo nuggets all over the house. It's a real Easter egg situation, folks. We thought that she just went in the bathroom and we were like, well, you know.

Yeah, I opened the bathroom door, and I turn on the light and I see on the floor this just giant pile of dog poo. And I knew she was having some tummy issues. So I was like, oh, poor Doddy. And so I cleaned it up and I was like, I thought that was it. But then the next morning we found another pile. And then another pile. Another one. Another one.

So that poor dog, she's, yeah. We bought her some new food. I think it's upsetting her tummy. Anyway, all this to say, I've been walking around this house with a real suspicious sniffer, folks. I'm just looking. I'm on the hunt. Nothing in the recording studio, though.

We keep this door closed. So. You say that as if they're in here with us so they don't have to be worried. Don't worry, the turds are outside this room, folks. Step anywhere you want. I was showcasing our new merch. I don't want poop particles flying on the history hose shirts. They're safe people, don't worry.

You'd have to pay extra for one that Doddy has pooped on. Don't they say it like bars? There's like fecal matter in like the bowl of peanuts and stuff. Yeah, but bars don't do bowls of peanuts anymore. They do bowls of worthers. Originals now. What bars have you been? Is there a bar at Bob Evans?

Is that what you're trying to tell us? Imagine if Bob Evans had a full bar. Good grief. The happy hour would be rockin. I would go to that. You probably would. Just for the novelty of it. Sure.

When we first moved here in the downtown Power and Light District, which is where all the clubs and bars are, they had a Burger King Whopper bar and I was like, oh my God, what is that? And Kristen was like, it's just a Burger King that serves beer. Yeah. That's all it is. But I was like, I'll be the judge of that.

And I wanted to go so bad. But Kristen was right. It is just a Burger King that serves beer. What a sad day for Normie C. Yeah. I'm a real sucker for novelty stuff like that. But you don't even drink. This was back in the day.

Okay, yeah, that's true. That's true. But also if I go to a town and I see, a sign that says world's best burger. I am going to try it because I have to see if that claim is true. This is like one of the worst things. You will be driving through a town and the shittiest restaurant with no cars in the parking lot will have a sign that says best burger in town and Norm is like, screech!

They can't just make that claim and think I'm going to ignore it. I have to get to the bottom of it. I got you to marry me by being like, I'm the best wife ever. And he's like, I will test that. We'll see about that. I've been a pimply mess ever since. So, Walter's presenting to these doctors, and they're like, yikes, whoa, tap the brakes. Big yikes, dude.

But Walter wasn't deterred. he didn't have to be what you you heard deter he wasn't deterred he was de turn walter wasn't he was de man walter wasn't deterred good grief who knew this episode would be so deeply unsurious yeah you know what i think we've just had kind of a wild day with dog turds in our way what's like what's a girl got to say yeah well on the royals play tonight play today. I'm trying to rhyme here. Well, they actually play tonight at 7 o'clock.

Great, okay. And it's all I can think about. Okay, well, I'll hurry up, but you're kind of interrupting with your stories about how you used to think that you could die from farming in the small room. No, there's a lot of other conditions. Okay, it had to be a small room. You had to have cabbage and sauces, and the room had to be airtight. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Anyway, continue. Walter was deterred. He was deterred. Oh, no, he wasn't deterred. Sorry. They thought he was deterred. But he was, in fact, not deterred.

Yeah, he thought he was a man. Yeah, because it's not like any of those doctors were going to damage his reputation publicly. In those days, it would have been totally unprofessional for a doctor to publicly call out another doctor for malpractice or bad doctorate. You know? That's too bad. I think name and shame is the way to go. I mean, especially when lives are on the line. Just like professional wrestling.

These doctors, let me tell you something, brother. Walter Freeman is a punk-ass bitch. Yes, everything should be more like wrestling. Hey, that would stop him from doing these lobotomies if someone called him out. Yeah, possibly. Also, the person who calls him out should be oiled up. Mandatory. And in spandex. Okay, can we agree? We agree. Great.

That's right. We're wearing a bandana. Obviously. So they can't talk shit publicly like their wrestlers. Yeah. Which would obviously be the dream for all of us. But they could talk shit to his face. And they absolutely did. For example, in 1937, Walter went to William White, who was the superintendent of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. And Walter was like, hey, you should let me lobotomize our most difficult patients here. And William said, it will be a hell of a long time before I let you operate on any of my patients. Ooh, yeah, get his ass. Yeah, it turned out to not be true, though, because seven years later, that guy died.

And, oh, yay, the roadblock is gone. So Walter and James went to St. Elizabeth's and performed like 50 lobotomies. So in a room full of other doctors, yeah, he had to defend himself. But if he didn't want to do that, if instead he wanted to seek out praise and acclaim and spread the word, all he had to do was talk to people who weren't in the medical field, people who didn't appreciate the dangers of what he was doing. Why are you laughing? If I, I, because. What?

That is like the number one sign that what you're doing is complete horseshit. That you can't talk about it with anyone in your field? Yes, I have to go talk to people who have no idea what the hell is going on. He went to the media. He told them about his fantastic solution to mental illness, and they took the bait. The New York Times wrote an article about Walter Freeman and referred to the lobotomy as, quote, Surgery of the Soul. Oh, boy.

I mean, that's incredible praise. Well, and, like, sadly, in a way, took people's souls. Sure. Like, when that one woman was talking about me and my mom didn't read anymore and she always loved to read. That was part of her soul. Yeah. That's something she really enjoyed and she couldn't do it anymore. So I guess in a way it was surgery of the soul, ripping the freaking soul out of people.

But I'm telling you, like, if I found out about something like this and it's like, oh, we can just. take your depression away. We can take your anxiety away. And obviously, I'm not comparing myself to, you know, people who, like, their families are thinking they might need to go into an institution or something, but that'd be very, very tempting. No, I get it. If you felt like there was a safe procedure that would help you. Well, and unfortunately, like, getting information on clinical trials and tests and results back then was probably, like, non-existent for these patients. You know, you, the doctor comes in and you trust they're going to do what's best for you. And so, yeah, if... Well, and at this point, there aren't enough. You know, you have a neurologist in Portugal who's done 20.

You've got Walter up here with James, and they've done a couple. And boy, are they confident. So yeah, if you stopped vacuuming, I would go to Walter and say, because it's not vacuuming anymore. This is the thing she loves more than anything in the world. This is her favorite thing, and she just doesn't do it anymore. Does your wife like to read? Well, she does that, but her real passion in life is, filling up that Dyson saying, oh my God, can you believe all the pet hair in this house? Look at all the hair I captured. It's disgusting. I had to empty this thing like three times just on the main level. Oh my God. You do brag about. You should have seen what I picked up with that person. It's so satisfying. Damn it. So it wasn't long before all this glowing praise from the

press translated into even more trust from the general public, obviously. And that was key because a lot of people who had mental illnesses and a lot of people who had loved ones who had mental illnesses wanted nothing more than for there to be some cure or at the very least something to improve their condition. You know, especially for people who like, they just want their loved one to be able to live at home with them again. This would seem like a miracle. Yeah, you want them back. And here's Walter offering exactly that. A lot of people received lobotomies at the hands of Walter and James, but one of their most famous cases was that of Rosemary Kennedy. John, I have Kennedy's sister.

Yeah. His little sister, right? I think she was like the youngest. No, she wasn't the youngest. Hang on. Let me see where she was in the birth order. I believe there were eight siblings, and we'll get into a lot of that. Hang on.

Oh, yeah, she was his younger sister. Take that. She was number three out of eight. Hold on. Wait a minute. It says here. She was the oldest daughter. Yeah, she's the oldest daughter.

Oh, oldest daughter. Which means she could have two older brothers. Oh, it looks like I was wrong. It looks like there were nine of them. Oh, God. I am dumb. You know what? What?

I had it in my head. She had eight siblings, and so I was saying there were eight kids. Oh, goodness. Goodness. So there's nine total. Yeah. Because when you're one of them, you have eight siblings. Oh, my.

And eight plus one is nine. Very rude of you, Norma. was never good at math. Dr. Kristen stopped vacuuming, and she is not good at math. To be fair, doctor, she has never been good at math. It's actually something her teachers noted when she was in the first grade. I'm thinking this lobotomy will improve her math skills. Can you imagine?

Ugh, pass. Okay. So, Rosemary Kennedy. As the 1930s came to a close, a man named Joseph Kennedy was getting more and more concerned about his daughter, Rosemary. At the time, Joseph Kennedy was a super wealthy dude who was making a name for himself in politics. He'd recently become the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Oh, Julie Good. He was the patriarch of a large, brilliant family. In particular, he felt his boys held strong political promise.

And he was right, because his sons were John F. Kennedy, who would later become president, Robert F. Kennedy, who would later become a senator and attorney general, and Ted Kennedy, who would also become a senator. In fact, the only one of his sons who didn't have a big political career was his oldest son, Joseph, and that was only because Joseph died in World War II. But Joseph Kennedy, senior was concerned about Rosemary. And sadly, it might be more appropriate to replace the word concerned with the word ashamed. Rosemary had never quite kept up with her siblings. She'd been deprived of oxygen at birth. Apparently, when her mother Rose went into labor with Rosemary, the nurse tried to delay the birth because the doctor wasn't around. It's really sad. It's one of those

situations where the nurse was fully capable, fully trained to deliver babies, but the thinking was, oh, no, we got to have the doctor around. So she told Rose to keep her legs closed. And as a result, the infant's head was kept inside her for two hours longer than it should have been. That's horrible. Yes. As a child, Rosemary had trouble reading and writing. For the record, she did read and write, but just not at the same level of her siblings. There was a lot of shame around Rosemary. It seems that Joseph did everything he could to hide, what he saw as his daughter's deficiencies from ever getting out to the public.

One story I read said that she was kept kind of away or inside a lot because they were afraid that if she interacted with too many people on too close a level, then they would know that something... Good Lord. Yeah. When she was 11, Joseph and Rose sent Rosemary away to a boarding school for intellectually challenged students. And she bounced around a lot as a kid. And there's debate over how severe her delays really were. But there's no debate about the fact that she was treated like she was a problem. It's just horrible. Did John have Kennedy ever comment on his sister? We'll get to some of that in a bit. Okay. In other words, keep your pants on. on, buddy, or your shorts on, as it were. How do you know I'm wearing shorts?

I'm looking down, I'm seeing some knees. Checking out my games. I guess you could be totally without anything. Oh my, everyone, he just spread his legs. It's a little too much, frankly. You don't know what's going on under this table. The camera doesn't go that low. I can be porky pig in it right now.

That's a $15 level on Patreon. You watch the lower region of the video. Yeah, we've got a GoPro set up underneath the table, just pointed at my crotch. Yeah. So one of the really sad things about this story is that in the late 30s, when her father was working so hard to figure out what to do with her, Roseberry was kind of living her best life. She was a young adult. She was pretty. She liked getting attention from dudes.

She had her little debutante thing. Like her little coming out party? She was debuted to the queen at Buckingham Palace. Yeah. That's quite a splash. Rosemary did stumble a little when she curtseyed, but, you know, good grief. I doubt she was the only one to ever do that. Yeah.

Her parents put her in a convent, and Rosemary started studying to become a teacher's aide. But when World War II broke out, Rosemary went back to live with her family. And it didn't go well. She had seizures. She got violent. Her parents sent her away again. when one place didn't work out, they sent her to another, but Rosemary didn't want to be locked away. So when they put her in a convent in Washington, D.C., you know, she sometimes escaped at night.

And that was really scary for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it wasn't safe. But for another thing, her father was afraid that if Rosemary got pregnant or did something scandalous, then his political career. Yeah. And possibly the political career. of his sons would be jeopardized. And so, in November of 1941, when she was 23 years old, Rosemary's father decided that she needed a lobotomy. Did you read about it in Reader's Digest, or like, was this like a common procedure at this point? It wasn't common. She would be the 66th patient of Walter Freeman and James Watts. But, you know, he's looking for a solution, and this was seen as the new big solution.

That's, I mean, it's almost like you're, I keep going back to that surgery of the soul description. Yeah. So you're just taking away who this person is. Well, and it's so sad you think about this time period. I didn't write this part down, but like one of Rosemary's brothers, who'd always been really good to,

her, traveled abroad, and saw what the Nazis were doing in kind of the early days, we're talking 30s. And he wrote back that he was really impressed with, you know, how they were getting rid of some of the undesirables. Oh, he was into the eugenics. Yeah. And so... What? Again, I mean, some of this stuff about Rosemary, I mean, I'd have to go into greater depth with it, but to say, okay, she's just not intellectually on the level as her brilliant siblings. Why is that such a bad thing? You know, why does that have to be so shameful? But it was in this time period where we were really into breeding the right kind of human, you know?

Yeah, and this Joseph Kennedy guy cared very much about his public perception and what people would think of him and his family. And to be fair, there would be a lot of judgment. You know, I'm sure he wasn't wrong. Yeah, at that time, sure. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's horrible that he thought the solution was, I'm just going to like snip off some of my kids' brain to fix the problem. To be fair to him and to anyone else who thought that this was the right thing for their loved one, you know, if you put it like that, any surgery is going to sound gross and terrifying.

When you've got who you think is like the best leading neurologist and he's working with. with this amazing neurosurgeon and they're saying, yes, this is, this can help. This will make a difference. See, this is why it's important for the doctors to be like professional wrestlers. And they can come out publicly and be like, let me tell you something, brother. No, I agree. This guy's full of it. And Joseph Kennedy would be like, oh, that's, maybe I should reconsider.

I just read this article in Reader's Digest that said Walter Freeman's full of shit. Yeah. By Dr. You know, I want to take you seriously, sir, but you say your name is Hulk Hogan. And I just don't know. Dr. Randy Savage said that Walter Freeman sucks. So Rosemary was fully conscious during the surgery. They asked her to sing songs during it.

And at some point during the procedure, Rosemary stopped singing. I was going to say, is it like instant when they like sever a nerve? Does it just like instantly affect you? I assume so. I assume that's why they want you to be conscious and talking and, you know, so that they know immediately. This is gross. Yeah, it's disgusting. The results of Rosemary's lobotomy were horrific.

She went from being a slightly troubled young woman who was capable of living independently to being like a toddler. Yeah. She lost the ability to speak. She could babble, but that was about it. She couldn't walk. She couldn't use the restroom. She couldn't walk anymore?

She would eventually walk again. But I'm talking like immediately after, the immediate results were terrible from the start. She required full-time care. She did eventually walk again, but for the rest of her life, she could only use one of her arms. And after that disastrous procedure, Rosemary's parents sent her off. to be cared for in far-off facilities. Yeah, I do remember reading that, that she needed care the rest of her life. Yeah.

And she died in like 2005. You have a really good memory. She sure did. Yeah. Rose blamed Joseph for insisting that Rosemary get a lobotomy, but she didn't visit her daughter for the next 20 years. So, yeah, it sucks that your husband did that. But how do you not visit your child?

you've got all the money in the world. That's the other thing is like there were a lot of families who could not have afford it. Oh, God. Yeah, they just sent her far away. Yeah. Out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, that's what they thought. And just think, Joseph Kennedy's grandson, Robert Kennedy Jr., goes, runs for president, claims he has a brainworm, cuts the heads off whales, dumps dead bears into.

Central Park. Uh-huh. But Rosemary was actually the troubled one. Yeah. Yeah. The results of Rosemary's lobotomy were obviously disastrous. And the way she was treated after was deplorable. But it wasn't all bad.

And on that note, I want to, I've really gone a little further than I should have into this story, but I'm going to go a little further. Okay. Because it's kind of an uplifting tangent, I think. Oh, well, we could use some of that. I know, right? Okay, after the lobotomy, Rosemary's sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was not willing to pretend that Rosemary didn't exist. Shriver. Uh-huh.

Mother to Maria Shriver. Wife, ex-wife, to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Very good, Norm. Eunice went to her dad and was like, excuse me, you're really stupidly wealthy. How about you put some of that money into research so that we could actually figure out something that would help people? And then when her brother JFK was president, Eunice was like, hey, how about you start up the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development? And he was like, okay.

He's like, okay, I will. I will do this. I will do that. It is important. These days, Eunice Kennedy Shriver is best known for being the founder of the Special Olympics. Oh. Yeah. And when Rosemary Kennedy passed away in 2005 at the age of 80s,

her siblings Eunice, Jean, Pat, and Ted were all by her side. That's nice. Yeah. Rosemary Kennedy was definitely one of the more high-profile people to receive a lobotomy. Actually, hang on. What? Okay, so that makes sense. Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger was very involved in the Special Olympics.

Yeah. And so that's probably a big reason why. Oh, absolutely. Because his mother-in-law started the Special Olympics. Okay. Sorry, continue. So she was one of the more high-profile people to receive a lobotomy. But the thing that stands out to me is that in the aftermath of the lobotomy, her exceptional family handled the disastrous results of it,

just like almost every other family did. They stayed quiet. They didn't complain. They didn't speak out. And, ooh, I'm getting goosebumps. Because I think that's so sad, but it's also so understandable. They'd heard about this miracle cure, so they sought it out for their loved one, thinking they were doing the best thing for their mother or father or sister or brother. And when the results of the lobotomy were bad or even just not good, people tended to keep that information to themselves.

Maybe they thought that their loved one was an outlier, or maybe it was too hard to think that a procedure that they had advocated for. had done more harm than good. So you think they were maybe just embarrassed, ashamed? I think it's more than embarrassed. Yeah. I think it's way more than embarrassed. Like putting myself in somebody's shoes, if you were suffering from a severe mental illness

and we tried everything, and then there's this new procedure, and I advocated for you to get it, I believed fully, and then you get it, And, okay, some things are kind of better, but a lot of things aren't. And I end up feeling like, well, this isn't exactly what I was hoping for. It'd be really hard for me to admit that to myself that I advocated for that.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Sure. Meanwhile, Walter Freeman was getting what he'd always wanted. All the fame and fortune, huh? He believed, you know, I don't know how much money he, I mean, I'm sure he made plenty of, but he believed in the good that he was doing, largely because he ignored his critics. He dismissed bad outcomes. Those happen sometimes.

Yep. He focused only on the good. Ah, the power of positive thinking. Yes. By 1942, Walter and James had administered lobotomies to more than two. hundred people. And they boasted a 63% success rate. What do they define as success for all about me? Oh, that is so amazing. My next line, but they had a funny way of defining success. Can we also pause 63%. Hey, that's more than half.

Good grief. More than half of our patients have successful results. So let me give you a success story. Are you ready? Okay, one patient, 36-year-old man who'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He had a lobotomy, was good for two days, bad on the third, and a few days later, they gave him a second lobotomy. Another one? This happened more often than you want to know. Wait, but they'd sever the nerve, right? How do they sever it again? Well, maybe they needed to do some more snips.

I'm so confused. How do you give another lobotomy? That was a one-time deal. No, you know. So they gave him lobotomy number two, then they discharged him. The man was never the same. Four years later, the man's brother said that he'd do things that made no sense.

He'd spend six hours just washing his hands, six hours, washing his hands, while wearing filthy clothes. He was eventually placed in a psychiatric hospital. But to Walter and James, that was a success story. That's better than schizophrenia, huh? Yeah, because the patient wasn't aggressive anymore. And that was kind of what it was all about, making people more manageable.

That was certainly why some children were given lobotomies. Oh, not the kids. Yeah, we'll get to that later. Just more fun stuff ahead. I have to look forward to you, yeah. When people question the safety of the procedure, Walter assured them that a lobotomy was no more dangerous than an operation to remove an infected tooth. Yeah, basically the same thing.

Bad day at the dentist. But he knew that wasn't true. He also knew that it would take years before they'd understand the actual risks and benefits of a lobotomy. But there was no time for caution. World War II had ended. And as a result, two things happened that made the demand for lobotomies skyrocket. PTSD? Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. You've got all these folks coming back from war. They've seen horrific things. There were suddenly a lot of people who needed serious help. In those days, they called it combat fatigue. Oh. Or battle fatigue.

Didn't they call what they wore combat fatigues? So did that ever get confusing? Hmm. I'm not trying to be hilarious. I just am. That's true. That's a good point, Kristen, but... You know, I was wearing my combat fatigues when I developed combat fatigue.

Yeah, that's, yeah, accurate. So the Veterans Administration ordered its neurosurgeons to study and then administer lobotomies. Oh, boy. Meanwhile, already full and under-resourced psychiatric hospitals were suddenly more full than ever before. And Oopsie's Life magazine ran an investigative piece about what really went on in state psychiatric hospitals. They ran photos from inside a facility in Pennsylvania and inside a facility in Ohio. Photos of people tied down. Oh.

Photos of people naked huddled together. Americans read that expose and they were horrified. Ironically, they were seeing some of the same stuff that had disturbed Walter Freeman when he'd started out as a young neurologist. A writer who was interviewed for the episode of American experience said that the photos in life, magazine made an impact on the American public because those photos were a little too similar to the photos from Nazi concentration camps. And, you know, after the war, we wanted to feel superior. We were on the right side of history.

We were the good guys. And seeing how we treated people with mental illnesses flew in the face of all that. So we needed a solution right now. And there was Walter Freeman And his neurosurgeon, James Watts Check this out, fellas. Yeah, they had a solution And it was the lobotomy.

In Walter Freeman's mind, there was just one problem. As it currently stood, a lobotomy was freaking brain surgery. It required a neurosurgeon, a sterile environment, time, all this stuff. He wants to simplify the process? Yeah, streamline it.

Figure out a way to make it easy, fast. What if you could do it in under 10 minutes? I'd say you were cuckoo bananas. There's no way. Oh, but it can be done. It's like seven minute abs. Yes. Good news, Norm.

Walter found out about an Italian doctor who had accessed the brain via the eye socket. Oh, my God. Yeah, it just squeeze a little. Stop it. Yeah, you could fit it in there. Okay, so over the course of a few months, Walter developed a lobotomy technique that like this. Okay, I'm pausing. If you get grossed out like me, hit fast forward several times. Give me like a minute, although I don't even know that I'm going to take that long because it's

fucking gross. Okay, here we go. Gross stuff happening. Okay, so Walter would slide an instrument, usually like a spike between the eyeball and the orbit. And then he, when he got it in there real good, he'd hammer it through the bone, wiggle it, and in the process of wiggling it, He'd sever the fibers that connected the frontal lobe to the thalamus. And then he'd repeat the whole thing on the other eye, the spike, the hammer, the wiggle, boom, bing, bang, boom. Okay, we're back. I wonder what brand a hammer he used. Probably a craftsman from Sears.

Lifetime warranty. What if that were true, Norm? Wait, is it true? This is sometimes referred to as an ice pick lobotomy. Yeah. Because Walter literally used the ice pick front. his kitchen to perform the procedure. From his kitchen.

And he sometimes used like a regular hammer, like from a job site. He did this to shock people. Oh, I just saw that's all the surgery required. Well, technically I guess. Was he trying to scare people by busting out a claw hammer? He did enjoy grossing out other doctors. Okay, so this has gone beyond helping people. Yes.

He enjoyed shocking people. He enjoyed entertaining people with this procedure. And no, a neurologist does not have only, oh, what do I have? Oh, I can only use this ice pick and this regular hammer. No, he has access to tools. Now, should he be performing brain surgery? No, he shouldn't. He's not a surgeon.

No, and not through someone's eye socket. Oh, God. Also, an ice pick from his house? Yep. You can use anything. Yeah, I'm pretty sure like germs had been invented by then. Oh, fun fact. He did not use gloves or a mask.

He was the original Karen. He didn't want to wear masks. They don't work, Kristen. They're ineffective. Now, let me perform this lobotomy. Yeah. He first performed this in 1946 on a woman named Sally Ellen Inesco. Her daughter later described Sally as being suicidal before the lobotomy and then peaceful afterward.

So I mentioned that just because it wasn't all terrible all the time. And that's what makes it. Is peaceful just like a nice way of saying docile? Yes. Yeah. But again, if we're talking about someone, I don't know. I think it is worth asking, let's say you've got someone who's really violent.

They are a threat to themselves and to others, and you love them and you want to get them help, and they get this procedure. And yeah, they're docile. They're more childlike. I don't think you'd see that as necessarily a bad thing. In some ways, no. In a lot of ways, no. There's no medication yet. There aren't good alternatives, but it's like I've been saying it's such a roll of the dice because the outcomes would vary so much.

I'm just saying there were a lot of patients who were really grateful to Walter Freeman for what he did for their loved one. It's such a risky operation. Yeah. And doesn't seem like there's a lot of science behind it. No. I mean, if you're shoving an ice pick into someone's eye with a Sears Craftsman hammer, Yeah, it's rough. Yeah.

But Walter was thrilled. He went all over America, performing this procedure, demonstrating it to crowds. He even had a motto, lobotomy gets them home. This is the way to get people out of institutions and into a so-called normal life. And you know what? He was making a name for himself. He wasn't just pioneering a new technique. He wasn't just saving people and changing the world.

he was having a good time. I already mentioned the ice pick and the carpenter's hammer, but he'd also, you know, sometimes he'd start the lobotomy with his right hand and then switch to his left, just for the fun. What the... Kind of like when a clown juggles and then, oh, blammo, reverse! He's taken after his grandfather. Showboating.

Well, I don't think it's fair to his grandfather to compare the two. I'm just saying. Yeah. He's clearly doing it for attention. It's fucking gross. It's gross. Did he play like the Benny Hill theme while he was performing these lobotomies? It hadn't been invented yet, but I bet he would have.

Worth noting, not everyone was impressed with Walter's antics. Yeah, Dr. Randy Savage. And a lot of psychiatrists. They were kind of disturbed by what he was doing. So in the episode of American Experience, Walter Freeman's son talked about a speech his dad gave to a group. of psychiatrists, and the psychiatrist started heckling him, because evidently this was the WWE. I don't know. Idiot says what?

But Walter was fully prepared for the heckling, because he reached under the podium, pulled out a box, filled with hundreds of Christmas cards. They were from the families of patients he'd treated, people who were so grateful to him. And he said to the group of psychiatrists, how many Christmas? cards do you get from your patients? Ooh, but then Dr. Randy Savage appeared with the seal chair. Blamo right behind the head. Another method that Walter used for shutting down criticism from psychiatrists was to say,

okay, let's say you got a patient who comes in and they're hearing voices. You know, he'd describe a very extreme case. And he'd be like, realistically, what can you do for that patient? What kind of talking it out can you do? Yeah, at that time. Yeah, he had a point. There really wasn't much that psychiatrists could do in those extreme cases. But also, worth noting, lobotomies hadn't been proven to be super effective on people with longstanding severe mental illnesses either.

So he can shut up. I mean, it's like being like, I don't know, oh, my arm hurts. And so you just cut your arm off. And you're like, well, what were you going to do about it? Yeah, sure. I cut the arm off and it's all better now. Now you don't have that pain in your forearm because I cut the whole arm off. The perfect solution.

The truth was Walter thought that lobotomies worked better on people who'd only recently started to have some issues. You've got to get it early on. Yeah, he began telling doctors that they should consider giving a lobotomy to any patient who didn't improve after about six months of conservative therapy. And I'm not sure what that entailed, but that doesn't sound like a lobotomy to any patient. enough of anything. So if I came to Walter and I was like, man, I had a really bad day at work yesterday. He'd be like... Do you have bad days pretty often?

They happen? Uh-oh. I'm thinking a lobotomy might be for you, buddy. Let me tell you, therapy is bullshit. Don't mess with that. Let me... Doctor, I got to tell you, my boss is an asshole. Let me rinse off this ice pick real quick.

Actually, there's no time. Never mind. Lean back, son. Yeah. As for who should perform a lobotomy? Well, Walter argued that just about anybody could perform. him. He famously said that a hospital psychiatrist could learn the technique in a single afternoon. And he thought that a hospital psychiatrist were total morons. So that was really saying something.

With three easy payments of 1999, I will teach you how to perform a lobotomy, my VHS tape. Call now. Tell him. Walter sent you. Operators are standing by. That's how we should sell these history hose shirts. We should open up a 1-800 number. We'll have a 30-minute info commercial. Oh my God. With skits and everything. And it's clear we have to really kill some time. Yeah. We've got to bring in family members to be characters. Um, yep. And we'll make wild claims about what the shirt can do. Sure. Why not? There's no ethics here. None. This shirt will save your life. Yep. Falling out of a plane and need a parachute. Grab this shirt, open it up. Uh-huh. You're safe. There was someone who didn't agree that just anyone should be performing brain surgery,

because I'm sorry, you can call it what you want. This is brain surgery. I mean, yeah. And that was Walter's longtime partner, neurosurgeon James Watts. Did he stand up to Walter? A bit. Some sources differ on when exactly they went their separate ways, but everyone seems to agree that the breaking point for James was when Walter began

performing his new, fast, cheap lobotomies himself and teaching other people, people who were not surgeons to do it too. Okay, the American Experience episode highlighted a very disturbing story from 1946 when James walked into the office that he shared with Walter and Walter was in there with ice picks hanging out of both eyes of his patient and Walter was like, oh hey Jim, would you be a and hold these ice picks while I take a picture. While the patient's in there? Yes. And James didn't say a word.

He walked out and they never shared an office again. What in the ever-loven world? Oh, hey. Just got these ice picks hanging out. You know what I want to do? I want to take a selfie. This is for my personal Insta, James. It's very important that I build up a strong following.

I want to be a lobotomy influencer. Imagine Walter Freeman in today's time with this lobotomy shit. I mean, hopefully he wouldn't get away with it. Hopefully, with informed consent and all the changes we've made, hopefully this could not happen again. With James gone, Walter had more freedom. Oh, boy. You know. No one to check them, huh?

Sometimes the trash takes itself out. Am I right? You're right. Walter got showier, flashier. He invited the press to watch him work. Oh, God. In 1951, Walter was performing a series of lobotomies at Cherokee State Hospital in Iowa. Three patients died that day. One of them died when Walter's ice pick slipped. He had been taking a photo. Oh.

And that didn't slow him down. Over the course of two weeks in West Virginia, he performed 228 lobotomies. He called it his West Virginia Lobotomy Project. She's like a traveling surgeon doing a show. Yep. Gross. James Watts was interviewed in, I think, 1980 by the Washington Post. And he said that Walter could be so entertaining that people would sometimes bring dates to his lectures. Oh, that's romantic.

Yeah. That gets you going? No. Lobotomy lecture. No. Oh my God, because you know there'd be a demonstration. To hear him tell it, he was solving a real problem, not just for the patients or for their families, but for the state. West Virginia didn't have much money, and the state was talking about closing some of its psychiatric hospitals.

But if a bunch of their patients were lobotomized, maybe some of them could go home. Maybe the rest would be so docile they'd be easier to care for. By this point, Walter had performed. thousands of lobotomies. He'd helped popularize the procedure. Lobotomies were performed all over the world with reckless abandon. When did this shit stop? You think I'm not going to get to that, sir? I'm just, the further you go with the dates, I'm like, we're in the 50s now and there are still lobotomies going on? It's alarming. A few years earlier, he'd nominated Antonio Egas Moniz

for the Nobel Prize. And in 1949, Antonio was awarded the Nobel Prize. for his invention of the leukotomy. But by the mid-1950s, the tide began to turn. By that point, so many lobotomies had been performed that now people could kind of see the risks involved. Yeah, you're talking, it's like 20 years of examples now. Because the first one was like 1936. I would say like 15 years, yeah.

Yeah. They could see now, this was not actually a simple procedure. This was not as risky as having a tooth removed. No. It could permanently mess people up. Yes. And as people became more leery of the lobotomy, researchers came up with safer, more effective solutions.

I'm talking meds, baby. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah, so the new meds weren't perfect, but they were a hell of a lot better than two ice picks to the face. Yeah, I'd rather be shot with a tranquilizer gun every day than freaking... Well, and tranquilizers were part of the new cocktail. Then get an ice pick in my brain. Right.

For a lot of people, the choice was obvious. Walter couldn't accept that times were changing. If lobotomies weren't accepted, if they weren't respected, if they weren't still in practice, then where did he stand in the world? So he kept performing them and kept defending them, even when he did the indefensible. Norm, are you okay? I'm fine. You don't look fine. Don't worry.

We're wrapping up, baby. I'm waiting to hear about the, the, good. The children, I think you're getting to the children, which is where it gets real fucked up. In 1960, a woman reached out to him about her stepson. 1960. Her stepson was 12 years old, and in her mind, he was a real problem. She wrote to Walter Freeman that her stepson did ridiculous things. Like, he'd refuse to go to bed, but then when he finally fell asleep, he slept like a rock.

That's like every child ever. No, it's a child with a huge problem. What? She wrote that the boy didn't like bathing. Oh my gosh, he didn't want to go take a bath. What the hell was wrong with this kid? She's just describing every child that has ever existed. No, Norman, listen to this.

Sometimes when it was really hot outside, okay? Picture a real hot day? This kid would wear a sweater. And then, and then on a really cold day, he'd be in an undershirt. Okay, well, I did that as a kid. Every kid did this. Yeah, I'd go out in a snowstorm in my shorts, and my mom would be like, get your ass in the house. It.

But I don't think my mom considered a lobotomy for me. It is so upsetting. Okay. Kid doesn't want to go to bed at bedtime, but then they go to bed and then they fall asleep. Well, I'm sorry, that's every kid ever. If that doesn't describe your kid, congratulations. You might have a cat. I don't know.

Wait a minute. This isn't a kid. Hold on. And yeah, the thing about not dressing for the weather? Super normal. Yeah. Super normal. So she wrote to Walter Freeman, and Walter Freeman told the woman that her stepson could not be helped by therapy.

Nope, nothing else is going to work. It's only one thing. Lobotomy or bust. Therapies for losers. Ice pick to the face. So he performed a lobotomy on a 12-year-old boy. Dear Lord. The boy is, of course, now a fully grown man.

His name is Howard Dully, and he has spoken out about his experience. He said he didn't even know he'd had a lobotomy until three weeks after the procedure. And he didn't act. Was he knocked out? Or did he forget it happen? Well, I think it was one of those things. You just know that you're being taken to the doctor and they're going to perform a procedure. And that's just the way it is.

is. And you wonder how the brain develops when you're that young after you have a lobotomy. Absolutely. Yeah. Did the documentary go into that? I can't remember. I don't believe so, no. Yeah.

I wonder. And by that, I mean, no, it did not. I wonder if it didn't affect him as much as others because his brain was still growing and developing. I'm not sure. He talked about how he feels like it absolutely has affected him. There's no doubt it has. Yeah. He said that he didn't find out.

until three weeks after the procedure. And he was reluctant to ask Walter Freeman any questions because he on some level didn't want to know what he had done to deserve this. And of course you would think, well, they wouldn't just do this for no reason. They wouldn't just do this because sometimes I don't want to go to bed at 9 p.m.

His story is really fascinating. He never discussed it. with his stepmom and dad, and then later, much later, as an adult, he talked to his dad about it. And his dad, oh, his dad put all the blame on the stepmom. Yeah. And oh, all the blame on Walter Freeman. And when Howard kind of tried to talk to his dad about it more, he was basically like, well, you know, I like to be positive. And I don't like to, and it's like, wow.

Cheer up, son. I don't like accountability. I really would prefer not to do that. Walter Freeman is believed to have lobotomized 19 children. One of those children was four years old. Four? Yeah. Good God. In 1967, he performed his final lobotomy.

Nineteen 67. The patient died of a cerebral hemorrhage during the procedure. And as a result, he lost his hospital privileges. finally by that point he'd personally performed nearly 3,000 lobotomies and he was 1967 he so he was like 73 years old so yeah he'd personally performed nearly 3,000 lobotomies yeah but even that number to me isn't right because so much of what he did was demonstrating how to do it for other people so there's probably thousands more right oh absolutely yeah he could never accept that he'd done harm. Later in life, he rode around the country in a camper,

visiting former patients, talking to them, trying to convince people and maybe just convince himself that he'd done something good. Yeah, he's trying to make himself feel better. Walter Freeman died in May of 1972, ironically, following complications from surgery. What did he have done? I think he had cancer. My first guess was Brazilian butt lift. His Brazilian put went terrible. Way wrong. But he did look good. But damn, did he have a nice ass?

I want to end with a quote from the author Jack Elhai. He wrote the book The Lobotomist, and that's what the American Experience episode is based on. Yeah. And he spoke about the research process and how his thoughts about Walter Freeman evolved as he wrote his book. And he said, I began by thinking that he must have been a monster. or a criminal, because after all, look what he did. But I've come to think of Walter Freeman as more of a tragic figure, blind, not so much to the consequences of lobotomy,

but to the consequences of his own faults and failings. And that is the story of the lobotomy. And that is disgusting. And I do think it's fascinating, but wow, I could not do a series on this. It's too gross. Yeah, that's okay. No one's like, oh, darn. We're not clamoring for part two of the body is.

Don't worry. How hurtful. No, that was interesting. And actually, I agree that, like, yeah, I think he got into that for the right reasons, wanting to help people. Yeah. And I think that author's right that he kind of tragically turned into something greater than he thought. Yeah, it couldn't let it go that it was harming people. and...

Well, I think it's kind of like what I was talking about earlier where loved ones, it would be too heartbreaking to admit I advocated for this thing and it made my loved one worse. Yeah. And yeah, how much harder is that

if you're the guy who made yourself the face of this procedure? Yeah, you popularized it. I didn't know some guy in Portugal came up with it originally. I did just a little bit of reading on him. Man, you might want to love it. look him up. He looks like a wax figure.

Really? Yeah. What's his name again? I think it's Antonio Egas, Moniz. Ah, he looks like a wax figure. Let's see. Oh, he does. He does. I mean, he really does. Like, you look at this and you're like, that's not a real guy. It looks like I created, someone created him out of Play-Doh. Yes.

Yeah, I don't know what it is about him. Something about the guy. Boy, Kristen, I feel like our minds are one. Why do you feel like that? Because my... What? Next bonus episode... Shut up.

...is also about... About lobotomies? Not lobotomies, but about brains. Okay. Are you going to gross me out? No. Well, it's kind of gross. No. Well... Yeah. Are you trying to get people to not...

sign up for the Patreon? That's right. I'm trying to prevent signups. We got to stay humble. Because I don't want people abusing this 10% off merchandise code we offer. We're losing money every shirt we sell because I had to go with the tribe blend. I just had to. He just had to.

He's a hero, folks. Oh, tragic figure, really. Great episode, Kristen. Thank you. Again, if you want, I mean, that was basically me telling you about the American Experience episode. It's such a good episode. I think you can really only find it on YouTube now. Yeah, I do remember watching that.

It was very good. American Experience is a fantastic show. I agree. Kristen, you know what they say about history, hoes. We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the lobotomist episode of American Experience. The article, Rosemary, the Hidden Kennedy Daughter Book Review by Merrill Gordon for the New York Times.

The article, D.C. neurosurgeon pioneered Operation IcePubes. technique by Glenn Frankel for the Washington Post, the article Walter Jackson Freeman, Father of the Lobotomy by Al Ridenauer for Mental Floss, as well as Britannica.com, and reporting from NPR. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe! Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok at Old Timey Podcast. Join the Reddit community. R slash Old Timey Podcast and follow us individually on Instagram. I'm at Kristen Pitts-Keruso and he's at Gaming Historian. And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio! Bye!