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Book ID: CBB727304752

The Lobotomy Letters: The Making of American Psychosurgery (2015)

Raz, Mical (Author)

University of Rochester Press
Publication date: 2015
Language: English

ISBN: 9781580465243

Publication Date: 2015
Physical Details: 178

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Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment Correspondence and corresponding Preventive medicine Neurosurgery; psychosurgery Lobotomy 20th century Freeman, Walter

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

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