PBS on here, American Experience, a doc. on the originator of

[babylonsister]

lobotomies. The first one was brutal! :puke: We're talking eyes and icepicks and hammers, oh my, to sever the frontal lobes. :scared:

And as always, check your local listings if you're interested.

[Dr.Phool]

1. Nah, I've got a bottle in front of me.

I don't need no frontal lobotomy.

[babylonsister]

2. Rosemary Kennedy was his 66th patient, he left her totally incapacitated,

and it escalated from there. 150 done in 1945 to 5,000 in 1949. Ugh!

The bottle sounds better.

[Digit]

3. I watched most of it and it was chilling

I found a brief youtube of the it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aNILW6ILk

They even performed this on a child of 4 yrs old. Barbaric does not even describe it.

[babylonsister]

4. It's unspeakable. This (Walter) Friedman guy was playing God. nt

[Pavulon]

7. believer vs premeditated murder

i think the man wanted to help. but carried it to far. ie he did not intend to do harm.

EDIT:CLARITY
merck released vioxx, knowing it presented danger and caused between 80 - 140,000 heart attacks and untold deaths. certainly more than 20,000 were killed.

[babylonsister]

8. Friedman was called 'an enthusiast'.

He only would acknowledge the events, results, things 'he' saw as positive even though the naysayers were out there. Now who does that remind me of?

And doncha know, in those days it was not even heard of and frowned upon to criticize a doctor publicly.

Your Vioxx comparison is chilling.

[Pavulon]

10. Saw this on east coast

it is sad disturbing, and still exists right now. It is just well hidden. The treatment of mental illness is probably the single most screwed up thing in medicine now. Many plans limit the time you can stay and get help, they classify clinical depression the same as cocaine abuse.

The science is still being done so many treatments are based on observed effect rather than scientific understanding. So now we have people coming back from wars, some with traumatic brain injury from explosions some with mental illness. And a system that can not help them.

[Pavulon]

5. You can not fix a system you do not understand

wife works in medicine and mental disorders are always challenging. If you break your leg the mechanics of repair are well understood. The PROCESS will always improve.

For head trauma or mental illness the process is evolving. I say there is lots of guessing. Treatments helps, dont get me wrong, but there is lots of room to improve medicine surrounding mental illness.

BTW the pictures of asylums can be seen in jails and on the streets. We basically dumped them all.

[BeatleBoot]

6. Cue The Ramones

And so forth and so on...

[ColbertWatcher]

9. I've got a reminder to see it.

Sadly, every medical field started out barbaric, but they've all evolved.

I'd love to see the history of dentistry.

[babylonsister]

11. I never thought of that. Wooden teeth?!

I heard that was a rumor, but I know there are barbaric instances out there. I knew a guy many years ago who was in the military and had all his teeth pulled/choppers issued. Except they sewed his top and bottom gums together after the teeth were removed. He finally had to take a deep breath, opened his jaws, and you can guess the rest.

I'm not a big fan of dentists myself, though I do like my current one I've had for near 15 years.

[ColbertWatcher]

13. Hmm. They're not playing that episode out here. They're showing "Minik"

Here's PBS's link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/minik/

[NoodleyAppendage]

12. It's too easy to dismiss Friedman, but he was responding to a need.

Whatever his weaknesses and issues, Friedman was trying to help those who otherwise would have been institutionalized for life. Psychotropic meds were not prevalent as a frontline treatment until the early 1960s, and prior to lobotomy the mainline treatments were diabetic shock/coma and bilateral ECT...neither benign treatment options.

The show was excellent, BTW.

J

[babylonsister]

14. Except he responded again and again and again, while seeing

what he did and the havoc he wreaked.