Word: manic
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...back as 1936 surgeons were working out a way to treat a psychosis by an operation called prefrontal lobotomy-the last resort for schizophrenics and manic-depressives. Using a technique devised by the University of Lisbon's emeritus professor Dr. Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz, skilled neurosurgeons cut away important nerve connections in the prefrontal brain lobe (a seat of reasoning) and the thalamus in the rear of the brain (a way station for emotional responses). The operation's aim: helping the patient to a better adjustment with his environment...
...operation has been performed on 14 patients. All were schizophrenics, manic-depressives, or psychoneurotics in obsessive states. In the first three cases the technique was not perfected, and there was no improvement. The last three operations were too recent to test results. Of the other eight, one died; three are still in institutions; four improved enough to return home, one enough to get a job (as a farm worker...
...therapy. Writing from an insane asylum to his brother Theo, he said: "I am struggling with all my energy to master my work . . . if I win that will be the best lightning conductor for my illness." That illness was possibly epilepsy, but it has also been defined as manic depression. Today, it might have been given electric shock treatment. As gallerygoers could see, Van Gogh's self-prescribed therapy was also a "shock treatment...
Thus far, only 24 topectomies have been done, as compared with more than 2,000 lobotomies. Results have been promising. Of the 24, 17 were schizophrenics, three involutionals (agitated depressives), two manic-depressives, two psychopaths (morally irresponsible). Eleven of the 24 patients are now at home, ten are working at their former jobs as clerical workers, machinists, other occupations; nine more are ready for discharge; the remaining four are no worse and no better. None died...
...Housekeeping advises, "If you write for your own amusement, you can be as dismal as you choose, but the public continues to prefer entertainment to morbidity . . . I often feel that if I come across one more trauma or psycho-analyst's couch in a manuscript, I will become a manic-depressive and scream...