Word: skull
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Grey Matter Psychosurgery is older than the pyramids, though ancient man didn't call it psychosurgery. When he picked up flint and mallet and cut a hole in his brother's skull, he was often just looking for a way to let the evil spirits out. Modern medical science not only has better tools and a sounder vocabulary, but believes it knows where to look for the trouble, i.e., in the front part of the brain...
...last 14 years psychosurgeons have performed thousands of operations on the frontal lobes. They still do not agree on just where or how to open the skull or what tissues...
What actual surgical procedures work best? Washington's Dr. Walter Freeman, who (with Dr. James Watts) pioneered psychosurgery in the U.S., staunchly defends two operations in which he has specialized. Freeman and Watts performed 624 prefrontal lobotomies. In this operation (see diagram), a hole is drilled through the skull back of each temple, and a dull, rounded knife is inserted to cut white nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobe with the thalamus, a neural relay station at the base of the brain. Freeman reports good results in 41% of such cases and fair in 34%, admits poor results...
...Look Inside. Many doctors were not satisfied that it was safe or wise to make these "blind" cuts inside the brain. Some of them developed "open" operations, in which, for example, the surgeon saws out a wide piece of skull above the middle of the forehead, or two smaller pieces over each temple, so that he can see what he is cutting. Boston's Dr. Harry C. Solomon reports on hundreds of such cases and on still more variations. Sometimes only one lobe was cut (this seemed to be less successful) ; in other cases both lobes were cut near...
Since important impulses to & from the frontal lobes must pass through the thalamus, a Philadelphia team headed by Dr. Ernest A. Spiegel decided to operate on this central clearinghouse. They drilled a hole through the top of the skull, sank a hollow needle through the brain. When its electric tip touched the thalamus, it seared some of the nerve nuclei. Few other U.S. surgeons have taken up this difficult operation (thalamotomy). Dr. Spiegel reports on 43 patients, about half of whom were improved...