The Lobotomist, a PBS documentary about Walter Freeman which I mentioned recently, is now available online as a series of short clips that require either QuickTime or Windows Media Player for viewing.
The program charts how the lobotomy came to be regarded as a cure for most types of mental illness, how Freeman "refined" the procedure, and how, in the face of criticism, it was eventually replaced in the 1950s by the newly-developed neuroleptic drugs.
Read more about the rise and fall of the prefrontal lobotomy, and watch a film clip of James Watts and Walter Freeman performing a prefrontal leucotomy.
[Via Mind Hacks]
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