The process of lobotomy was based on several decades of experimental and clinical evidence. Lobotomy is a neurosurgical procedure in which the nerve fibers in the bundle of white matter in the frontal lobe of the brain are severed to interrupt the transmission of various affective responses. It is seldom performed, because it has many unpredictable and undesirable effects. This includes personality change, aggression, socially unacceptable behavior, incontinence, apathy, and lack of consideration for others. Because lobotomy is simple to perform, it was over used in the treatment of mentally ill patients in the past.This process is a form of psychosurgery. The effectiveness of such procedures has never been adequately evaluated. The availability of many antipsychotic drugs has greatly reduced the use of this surgery. A few surgeons still use it for severe emotional problems. In all states of the United Sates there are special boards that review all of the proposed operations.A Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz experimented with the fact that, the frontal lobes led to psychiatric disease. Disrupting these connections could lead to a cure. He performed this 1935, he injected the white frontal lobes with alcohol. In 1949 he received the Nobel Prize for this new discovery. This new procedure spread like wild fire throughout the U.S. By 1950 286 hospitals were using this procedure on 18,000 patients.At a conference in London, John Fulton brought in two chimpanzees. He had completely removed the entire frontal lobes from these two animals. They seemed to be very calm and quiet. Moniz and Freeman were both in attendance that day. In September 1935 Moniz participated in the first surgery with Almeida Lima. Thy injected alcohol into the frontal lobes, they were trying to destroy the fiber that connected the frontal lobes. They concluded that that area had something to do with social behavior. Moniz was somewhat disappointed because t...
