Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books; Reprint edition (August 26, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307381277
ISBN-13: 978-0307381279
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (313 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #92,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #15 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Surgery > Neurosurgery #59 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Medical Ethics #156 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Mental Illness
This is not a whodunit. We know whodunit. It was Lou Dully, Howard Dully's stepmother. She engineered a lobotomy for twelve-year-old Howard in 1960 because she hated him and found him irritating.Howard's mother died of cancer when he was five. This death may well have contributed to Howard's less than stellar behavior as a child. Also likely impacting Howard's behavior was his father, Rod, who was a cold, sometimes cruel, man.In the years before his lobotomy, Howard seems to have been rather slovenly and a bit insensitive. The child probably just needed the love and affection that his parents wouldn't give him; instead, he got an ice pick in the brain. If Howard "needed" a lobotomy, so did the majority of the country.Actually performing the surgery was Walter Freeman. He performed some 2,500 (one source says 3,500) lobotomies from 1936-1967. It is a shameful reflection on the medical community/the government/society that Freeman could slice brains for so long.Many of Freeman's patients (the book indicates fifteen percent) died as a result of the operation. Many survived as "vegetables." Others lived out their lives in a passive state, not "vegetables," but unable to survive independently. Many showed no long-range change in the behavior that had led to the lobotomy. Enough showed improvement in their (usually depressed or aggressive) behavior to lend credibility to the procedure.The lobotomy severs the connection between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain. This seems to block the development of strong emotions that can lead to depression, defiance, and aggression.After the operation, Howard drifted about for decades.
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