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hey weirdos I'm Ash I'm Elena and this is morbid [Music] with Slurpee frogs you'll get that at
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the end of the episode but there's a dub dub in the room today say hi yay and Mikey what up we got the full
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Coven in here calling the corners later yeah we got four of us so we can I [ __ ]
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missed you this week I missed you this week it felt weird without you it was very strange we and actually have a
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funny story related to it because um we took the fam to Storyland in New Hampshire except for me and well Ash
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wouldn't go I'm just gonna actually so we invited I told the kids you can't go to Storyland unless you have children
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and TT doesn't happen and what's scary is you can you can I saw it but a really adorable thing happened where
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we took the girls to go see uh meet Cinderella oh and she was like the prettiest sweetest Cinderella I ever did
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see and she had the like perfect Cinderella voice which is like that like pretty sing-song voice like she just was
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so I was like I am immediately soothed by you she was a fairy tale and she was so sweet and she held their hands in the
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picture and they were like just Star Struck and as we're walking away after taking the picture she was like do I
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know you from somewhere and I was like maybe listen to you on the radio one full Cinderella character like kept
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the sing song like said the radio and then she was like she goes I can't believe I'm meeting you right now and I
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go I can't believe I'm meeting you right now Cinderella the kids probably [ __ ]
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the things what's even better was she did like a mic drop at the end because she was like
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have a beautiful day Elena and I hadn't said my name like that was so the girls were like
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Cinderella knows mom holy [ __ ] like they were like what the [ __ ] like losing
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their mind that's iconic one you were awesome Cinderella if you hopefully you're listening Torino for Cinderella
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you're awesome you were an amazing Cinderella you were beautiful your voice is beautiful you made the girls day I
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saw a pic you're gorgeous you also made my day so Cinderella at Storyland from this week you were great and I'm sorry I
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thought of it later I was like oh I should have said I should have asked if you wanted to like take a picture or
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something or do something cool but like I didn't think of that so I apologize because I was very hot and we'd been at
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storyline twice and that's like that's a lot of snow that's two more days than I
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wanted to be there so we all know Elena hates abuse and you made it like really cool and the
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girls were so happy and that's all that counts so I love that you were awesome and keeping awesome keep it weird keep
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it weird just like Cinderella just missed you while you were gone yeah it's always weird I don't know I didn't
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really do much this week I got a lot of wedding stuff done this week well that's
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good yeah yeah we I mean we had a we had a very nice family time and we went with
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Deb Deb and her fam bam I know you guys are all so cute nice little family time together we love family time
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um you know who didn't love family time the Kennedys definitely not the Kennedys and I was
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going to say Walter Freeman but you you are correct these Kennedys did not um that's a joke yeah we are kidding
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kidding um when we we last you we lost you when we last you talked to it's been a few
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days I also I'm getting over that illness that started in part one so oh [ __ ] you were a second now I'm at the
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end of that illness because I wouldn't have been able to talk through this if we'd done it all at once I'm kind of
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glad you went away because I didn't end up getting it oh knock it on wood uh but
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when we left you in part one we were right at the part where well we had seen Walter Freeman and his partner there
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Watts kind of [ __ ] up a lot of lobotomies and kind of they were following um the original lobotomy
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procedure which did not is not to be confused with the Trans orbital lobotomy that he creates later two different
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things but when we last left you I was talking about how he ended up performing a very failed lobotomy on one Rosemary
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Kennedy this is gonna make me so sad and this was definitely one of his greatest
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failures by far one of his greatest failures and most public greatest failure for sure he ever like speak on
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it uh he concerted it just like oops okay moving on oopsie yep like it wasn't really wow just off we go yeah it's also
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like I they could have like owned his life you would think I mean there's a lot with this and I think um I think the
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outcome was just something that was kind of shoved to the side that's really sad and
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I don't think anybody was really looking to make a big fuss out of it uh because
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the whole reason it was done as we'll go into it was like political aspirations and someone someone seeming to get in
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the way of that according to certain people that's [ __ ] up um so let's talk about finally Rosemary
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Kennedy's lobotomy how it came to be and to do that we need to start with what happened to get there because I don't
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know like I know just the the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this so Rose Kennedy went not Rosemary Rose Kennedy
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her mother sure went into labor on September 13th 1918 and Rose Kennedy and Joe senior uh they placed a call to
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their obstetrician and they were thinking the doctor was going to arrive pretty quickly from Boston it wasn't
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going to be crazy but at that time there was a pneumonia outbreak in Boston so the doctor was actually detained he
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wasn't able to leave right away oh [ __ ] yeah 1918 am I right yeah um you're right so he wasn't going to make it to
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the Kennedy's house before the baby actually entered the birth canal like it was happening quick so
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I now in 1918 we knew people knew that like you don't hold a baby in the birth canal I would imagine that like we
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probably knew that even before we knew that uh I mean you'd be surprised but in 1918 it was well documented that that
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like what the outcome would be from that what kind of complications would arise from like very much known like right we
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can't blame this on like oh we didn't have the research kind of thing because we did so at the time believing she was
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doing the right thing a young nurse that was present for the birth ended up trying to hold Rose's legs closed
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to stop the baby from being born oh and when that I know everybody's making the same face in the room right now every
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yep everybody that could like kill the baby that's um that's bad in every way that something
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can be bad for both mother and baby yeah uh and it didn't work because as we know
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when a baby is being born a baby is being born you can't just cross your legs and stop it from happening oh my
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God so that didn't work so she reached into the birth canal and held the baby's head there
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and kept the baby in the birth canal for two hours two hours until the doctor arrived yes
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I don't know like why did the doctor have to be there if the baby was already coming out anyways
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like what is the [ __ ] logic there I don't I don't know they're they're I do not know what and again it was 1918. it
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was very well established that stopping a baby who is moving forward down the birth canal would definitely result in
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some issues like deprivation of oxygen it could result in birth defects brain damage all mannerable things
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um and this is what happened with rosemary Rosemary was the baby um and they need they actually named her
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Rosemarie but they nicknamed her Rosemary oh okay um now to anybody who was around
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Rosemary or just saw Rosemary she was just like all the other children around her
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you know nothing outwardly wrong uh but by the time she entered primary school that's when they started seeing that
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there was some developmental disabilities some cognitive impairments yeah gee I wonder why exactly
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and as she got older Joe and Rose Kennedy they tried to work with like you know to try to make life easier for her
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try to make learning easier they hired private tutors to help with school um they also would go out with her hire
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people to go out with her whenever she went into like the community um and the older she got though the more
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difficult it was getting and not just for them to like help her but it was now becoming a political
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thing where uh they were not keeping up appearances uh because now as she's getting older it's becoming evident that
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something's going on and for them the primary issue was that Rosemary would go into what they
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described as fits um what kid doesn't throw [ __ ] temper tantrum every now and again yeah I mean
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this was happening too when as she was getting older and the fits that they are describing are not temper tantrums
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they're seizures oh she was having seizures um and apparently so the author K Clifford Larson described them as
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seizures or episodes of mental illness quote unquote uh these would happen in public and this would embarrass her
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parents oh wow how embarrassing it is that you had a [ __ ] seizure are you kidding me exactly
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now this whole story is sad from start to finish it really is um because it didn't become a thing of
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like you know let me just Comfort my child and show everybody that like you know this happens to families all over
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everywhere that like you know kids have to go through this they could have been an example yeah absolutely to show
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people like you know this is how you show love and affection and you know support for a child who's cognitively
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impaired like no right we're not going to do that that's it's annoying so now at this point like throughout much of
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the 20th century mental illness and cognitive or developmental impairments were a cause of Shame and a lot of
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families would hide or just institutionalize their disabled family members instead of dealing with any of
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the quote unquote embarrassment or any social stigma that came from it how they didn't want to deal with it so they
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would just kind of lock them away that's it like let's pretend they just don't exist that's that's so sad imagine
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having a child and like you think about like how badly you wanted to have kids yeah and like how hard it is for some
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people and then some people are just gonna throw their kids in institutions well and it's like you like they you're
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not interested to come into this world like you brought them in right so take care of them like that's your whole job
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yeah your whole job is supposed to be I brought you into this world it's my job to take care of you and make it safe and
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make you safe like I'm your one protector yeah it's it's awful and to not not fulfill that responsibility that
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you bestowed upon yourself and not only not fulfill it but actively like throw them in a cage and you know throw away
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the keys it's like damn and it's like just because of something they have no control over and did not ask for and did
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not participating in creating like that is just beyond yeah and the thing is this was also very difficult
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for the very devoutly Catholic Kennedy family because their Church um was actually
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a certain kind of church that deemed disability the result of sin and they viewed it as a punishment from God that
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is literally so [ __ ] up and make oh angry yeah that's ridiculous it's really awful so
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while Joe and Rose Kennedy refused to have their daughter at this time committed to an asylum or an institution
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of any sort they weren't going to do the thing of throwing her away and locking up you know throwing away the key
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as Rosemary got a little older Rose said that she was having a little bit of trouble managing her daughter's Behavior
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because it was becoming a little unpredictable and you know as she gets older it's harder to lay down that
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parent card and she was also having trouble just meeting her needs without help so they were very wealthy very well
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connected family so they first sent her to various boarding schools where they were hoping she could find some kind of
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structure get help in school like have more focused learning in school I see that thought process but she was
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struggling to fit in she was struggling to meet the demands um but apparently people really liked her like Rosemary
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was an unbelievably charismatic and likable person um and even though she was struggling
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academically and struggling a little to fit in and kind of like find her place she worked really hard to win the
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affection and approval of those around her that was like something she really worked at
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um and very much she really wanted to make her parents proud like it was clear that she just really wanted to win them
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over essentially yeah like when they're loved it sounds like and again people around her loved her personal they
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thought she was everyone said her personality was so likable so Charming so charismatic you know look up pictures
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of her she looks like a hot [ __ ] yeah and she is beautiful like she's just like one of the she's like of that era
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yeah she's what you think of like it's just like she's so cool and so things probably would have
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continued this way for Rosemary I think they probably would have just kept trying what they were trying doing what
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they were doing you know I think it would have probably went okay right but then her father had political
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aspirations and by 1938 Joe Kennedy senior had been named the ambassador to the court of Saint James in Britain
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which was a position that required him to present himself and his entire family to monarchy at Buckingham Palace see I
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think that if you want to present yourself that's all well and fine that's a lot to put on your family kids you
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want to make that's tough it's tough you know what I mean it's a lot too you know
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to live up to yeah and it's a lot to expect of your entire family it is but in order to prepare Rosemary for the
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what was now going to be very intense scrutiny of the public the Kennedys enrolled their daughter at the Belmont
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house which was a Catholic boarding school that was run by nuns and favored Hands-On learning over rote memorization
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okay and according to Liz lens who's an author um she said quote Rosemary flourished
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under the guidance of the nuns and was training to become a teacher's aide so she was thriving seriously but then the
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Germans invaded Paris in 1940 and Joan Rose pulled their daughter out of Belmont house and returned to the United
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States so again she was on this road of like if things just kept going the way they were going we probably would have
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been okay we wouldn't even be sitting here now World War II may have prevented Rosemary from being thrust into the
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spotlight but it didn't change the fact that the family especially Joe Kennedy senior was seeing having having an
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intellectually disabled daughter a problem and that's such a wild school of thought
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yeah and he was searching now not just to manage what Rosemary was going through he was searching for a cure he
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wanted these these fits to stop I would love to believe in my heart of hearts that he's a father and was hoping to
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cure this person as well but there was definitely political Ambitions at the Forefront of this yeah I don't think you
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can tell that and this is when he be so in his search he was searching high and low for something something that would
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cure this he came across the work of Walter Freeman and James Watts no thank you
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um and this is when they were doing prefrontal lobotomies and it was definitely still controversial in the
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medical community but it was also gaining some traction a little bit in the press as quote a cure for the
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physically disabled and mentally ill now return to start Pasco yeah don't land in
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jail stop and by this time Rosemary's what they were calling them outbursts and fits were become more and more
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common she was struggling like more frequent too and now her behavior was kind of teetering like she'd started
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sneaking out at night and she's just having fun and the nuns were getting worried that she was going out to pick
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up men and would end up like pregnant or [ __ ] live your damn life all right go
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so crazy with that being brought to the Kennedys they were like okay so Joe Kennedy brought up the procedure of the
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prefrontal lobotomy to his wife Rose Kennedy Rose was skeptical and she was like I don't know about this and she
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asked her daughter Kathleen to find out more she was like will you go find out for me like I don't know anything about
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this please just like go tell me if this is real okay and according to Clifford Larson Kathleen spoke to a journalist
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whose name is John White I know him yeah and uh this John white guy had done some
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reporting on mental illness and treatments for the Washington Times Herald and he had done a real deep dive
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into this so he told Kathleen that these uh the results of the lobotomies were quote no good and he said don't no like
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I can tell you through my research people are ending up sometimes worse than they began don't do it it seems
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like more often than not worse than they begin and uh you know according to reports Kathleen went back to her mother
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and said oh no mother no it's nothing we wanted we want done for Rosie so they she was like no this is not good the
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results are not promising at all in fact you're a little scary like don't don't do this so Rose was like okay like
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thanks for letting me know but Joe went ahead and made the decision to have the surgery performed on Rosemary what
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so like went behind their backs just went behind their backs in fact biographer Lawrence lemur wrote Joe
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liked to cut away at a problem and then move on um I don't know if I don't know if
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Rosemary would be a problem yeah like I don't know if I would word it like that sir because also I'm like that is the
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most uh to cut away at a problem if you're considering Rosemary the problem that's exactly what you're doing cutting
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away and then moving on yeah seriously now after checking into George Washington University Hospital Rosemary
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was evaluated by Walter Freeman and watts and they diagnosed her with agitated depression what and I was like
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I don't know if that's it my guys no um and they both said uh what's great is that this is easily treatable with a
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prefrontal lobotomy it sounds like you could have a [ __ ] case of the sniffles and they'd be like oh my God
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you know lobotomy now based on that initial evaluation Joe Kennedy senior approved
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the surgery without telling his wife or explaining to Rosemary what was happening they didn't tell her what was
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happening she was 23 years old and they did not tell her what was happening oh my God and it was just after that
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initial evaluation they took a peek at her said she's got agitated depression we can probably cut into her skull and
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scramble around her front lobes a little bit and I think it'll work what do you think and he was like sign her up
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oh my God and knowing he knew nothing about it it sounds like it doesn't sound like Kathleen he like listened to what
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Kathleen said yeah also this was the same day they did the initial evaluation evaluation he said go right ahead later
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that day Rosemary was given an anesthetic to um to numb her brain she was strapped to a
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table oh my God Watts drilled two holes into her skull oh my God and used the leukotome to sever the connections in
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her frontal lobes while they were doing this they had Rosemary recite poetry to indicate that she was that everything
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was going on which also she loves poetry loved poetry and was very good at poetry
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so she was reciting it that is while they're drilling into her skull that is like a scene in the in a movie that
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would make you start bawling your eyes isn't that Macabre yes like that is macabre all of that like thinking about
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that oh my God this young beautiful vivacious but struggling young woman reciting poetry as they say well they
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drill into her skull and sever her free prefrontal lobe connections that her father consented to and is he in the
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room like just there I have no idea oh my God now how do you do that to your child
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yeah I don't know and it's like how did he even have the right to do that when she's 23 years old I'm assuming there
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was something I mean this is way back yeah there's no and I'm assuming it has something to do with what she was
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struggling with that they just assumed that it was his decision to make like giving me anxiety and I don't know if
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this was in the time where like you know he's the father um but again he had approved this whole
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thing based on the fact that Freeman and Watts had assured him this was going to
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solve all of Rosemary's problems or at the very least they claimed it'll make her docile and more manageable
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that's the other thing it's also such a that's so haunting that's haunting like yeah docile that's one way to put it and
00:22:07
you know what the surgery did do that I would say but don't you think or wouldn't you think that you would want
00:22:15
to see cases of like like their like their patients that it's worked on I would want to see for my own eyes those
00:22:21
people before I ever I mean I can't imagine putting my loved one in that position but before you ever did that I
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would want like concrete physical proof in front of me and he didn't even have that and remember they were kind of like
00:22:35
over inflating their results here like they they would follow these people for like a minute and a half and then be
00:22:40
like well it looks good to me and then all these issues would crop up and they wouldn't even report it wow so it did
00:22:47
put to an end her explosive outbursts and you know that the seemingly difficult behavior that they were
00:22:53
dealing with it also rendered her unable to speak and able to move she became paralyzed um after months of
00:23:01
therapy she regained the partial ability to walk oh my God but one leg was turned in
00:23:09
significantly and never was the same oh my God and did he ever like speak publicly about this this was a one of
00:23:18
those things that was just like and that's that that's a [ __ ] stain on your life my dear and what's in so it
00:23:26
took also months for her to regain the ability to speak and when it was it was quote a mix of garbled sounds and words
00:23:34
so she could barely even and like right up until the point that they did this to
00:23:38
her she's just reciting poetry and then and now she can but she can't even speak
00:23:43
she it's like she's locked in her own body yeah that's like I'm sure those outbursts were still happening in her
00:23:48
mind oh yeah do it oh my God so they put her in a prison of her own mind yeah absolutely
00:23:55
essentially how [ __ ] dark now once she was deemed stable Joe sent her to Craig house which is a psychiatric
00:24:04
facility and then she was transferred to Saint Coletta's which was a residential
00:24:09
facility in Jefferson Wisconsin and she lived at that facility until her death in 2005.
00:24:16
what for six decades she lived at that facility in a facility she's a Kennedy Joe never visited her
00:24:26
he died never visiting her [ __ ] that guy yeah [ __ ] that guy and following the
00:24:31
whole the surgery Joe was very cagey about where his daughter had gone he was very [ __ ] him uh but Rose and rosemary
00:24:38
lived at um in fact it was it was 20 years before she saw any family member no one went to see her 20 years 20 years
00:24:48
she lived at St Coletta's for 20 years before any of her family members found out where she was or went to see her so
00:24:55
so most of her family didn't even know where she was he wouldn't even tell you just wouldn't even tell
00:25:01
all to be a [ __ ] political leader and it was only after Joe's death in 1961 that Rose Kennedy learned where her
00:25:08
daughter was she never went to where she was University wouldn't tell her that man is a monster and he went to yep
00:25:16
and she went to see him her after 20 years of not seeing her and when Rosemary saw her mother for the
00:25:23
first time in 20 years she ran towards her and I guess like rose held out her arms
00:25:32
because she's thinking she's kind of running into my arms and all the nuns there immediately went to stop her
00:25:38
because they knew she ran at her mom and started pounding on her chest and screwed they said she was shrieking at
00:25:45
her and they said after 20 years she had a [ __ ] lobotomy she remembered that her mother was not there to take care of
00:25:55
her when she needed it oh my this is this is a gut-wrenching story there's a um I'm just trying to find
00:26:01
there's a People magazine article which I'll link in the show notes that tells you the story of when Rose saw her for
00:26:08
the first time and that's where it came out like you know that after 20 years in
00:26:11
a lobotomy she still remembered that she wasn't there when she needed her how could you ever do that to your child
00:26:18
yeah and I guess there were after that it was she still she still knew what it like you know there was still anger
00:26:26
there of course they ruined her [ __ ] life she would bring her to like um you know to the cape and Rose would bring
00:26:32
her into the to the house and everything and try to like you know be a part of her life at that point
00:26:39
but it's like a little too late and in that same article I think um there's a story about I think the ma Rose going
00:26:46
swimming and wanting her to come in and rosemary just like wouldn't even look at
00:26:50
her and like ever the nuns were like she yeah it's like you know it was abandoned
00:26:56
yeah she like I don't know what you expect here I mean I guess Rose was quoted as saying like Rosie what did we
00:27:02
do to you oh God and it's like because you you have to look at it from the perspective of a man made the decisions
00:27:10
for his family back then and who knows like you said he probably never told her where Rosemary was so then you have to
00:27:16
feel like rose was robbed of her child yeah it's a god horrific nobody won no one
00:27:25
won and it's like neither did you joke because now you're going down in history it's gonna be that lobotomized and threw
00:27:30
away your [ __ ] child yeah and it years later I guess um somebody uh Lawrence lemur who I
00:27:37
mentioned earlier was doing research for his biography on the Kennedy family and
00:27:42
he ended up meeting a server at a Nashville pancake restaurant who said that she was actually there and an
00:27:50
attending nurse during Rosemary surgery what and it said quote the nurse was so horrified by what she saw happening that
00:27:57
she left nursing and never returned to the profession and was a waitress at a pancake house I believe that yeah now
00:28:05
in 1941 when Walter Freeman and James Watts just cavalierly recommended Rosemary undergo a [ __ ] lobotomy by
00:28:13
just looking at her later that day oh yeah we have room in our schedule they had no research or evidence to say that
00:28:20
that was going to solve her problem but they they claimed it because they wanted
00:28:24
that name they wanted to say they wanted it and they figured let's roll the dice
00:28:29
if it turns out in our favor then we win if it doesn't they'll lock her away so who gives a [ __ ] oh my God just do
00:28:36
experiment on human life like this is beyond sickening yeah I I probably said beyond a total of like 52 times at this
00:28:44
point but it's crazy and and they they were medical professionals obviously which is insane but they had spent all
00:28:51
their time in labs and lecture Halls neither one of them had a lot of surgical experience experience to begin
00:28:56
with right so this is like they and now they have a growing body of evidence that's really showing that this is not a
00:29:04
good surgery no but they still went ahead with it and when it went terribly [ __ ] wrong they just brushed it off
00:29:11
and went ahead totally undeterred and they just kept doing them like they're no well now they now they they were like
00:29:19
this is when they went transorbital because if there was any trait that Walter definitely demonstrated
00:29:25
throughout his entire life from very young it was impatience this man had no [ __ ] patience for anything seemed to
00:29:35
say that in part one and we know that doing things quick and doing them right are not always the same thing no those
00:29:42
are actually two very different things he was always looking for the quickest way out and in fact one of his biggest
00:29:48
issues with psychoanalysis as a treatment for chronic illness like you know talk therapy and cognitive therapy
00:29:55
it was that the process could take years or even decades to show progress he didn't like how slow it was I want it
00:30:01
done now which in one sense you're like okay I understand wanting to find something to add to you know
00:30:10
psychoanalysis you know quote unquote that can maybe speed it up in a healthy way like something that can lead it
00:30:18
along hand in hand with that you know so that's always a good thing is to make people suffering lessen quicker you know
00:30:26
like definitely you shouldn't just be looking for the quickest thing you should be looking for something that in
00:30:30
you know in tandem with what's going on it just uh and so that's what bothered him the most
00:30:37
and while he believed the prefrontal lobotomy was definitely the solution to many of society society's like issues he
00:30:45
was growing kind of frustrated with the fact that this procedure was being limited a bit because they needed
00:30:52
trained neurosurgeons to do it and there was long recovery times due to you know
00:30:58
the [ __ ] head trauma yeah you would sustain during the surgery drilling a hole in your skull might take a second
00:31:04
to heal so in the years after Rosemary Kennedy's absolute disaster of lobotomy he shifted a lot of his attention to
00:31:13
adjusting the procedure so it could be done quickly and by trained medical practitioners without the need of a
00:31:19
hospital or long recovery times so in search of this solution not in a hospital yeah Javier lobotomy on your
00:31:27
lunch break can I ask you a quick question yes so when you drill a hole into the skull I know like sometimes
00:31:34
bone can kind of like regrow itself right but does that happen on your skull do you know like it can't fuse back
00:31:40
together so with the regular lobotomy as well as the transorbital lobotomy um they're kind of like drilling holes
00:31:48
in the skull right so they're not taking like a big chunk out of the skull it's like a drilling a hole so that you just
00:31:53
leave like it's that will I'm not sure what happens to that I'm sure a lot of the issues that happened after that was
00:32:01
probably did stem from that but yeah I don't think the entire thing was very well thought out from start to finish
00:32:07
because I'm honest you're just walking around with a hole drilled in your skull and yeah that seems like it could be an
00:32:11
issue like wouldn't you think that it would bleed or like you know what I mean like and then you would get like blood
00:32:17
on the brain or yeah like there's there's a whole host of issues that come from this for sure you just try to
00:32:23
picture it in your in your head and you're like yeah one I feel like I don't understand this last time it gave me a
00:32:28
headache I went home with a headache because I thought way too much about like my brain drilling holes in your
00:32:32
brain yeah yeah well to find a solution to this like slowness that Walter Freeman was not not
00:32:39
digging he turned to the work of Amaro and I think it's fiamberti it's a very Italian sounds very pretty with an
00:32:48
Italian accent um he was an Italian psychiatrist who also shared Freeman's enthusiasm for
00:32:54
Quick Fix solutions to the problem of mental illness I don't understand how in a medical profession you're like yeah
00:33:00
Quick Fix solution totally that'll work now a few years earlier than this fiamberti had successfully found a way
00:33:06
around the need to drill into the top or Sky side of the skull um by accessing the frontal lobes
00:33:13
through the orbital socket oh no no no no it basically would be inserting a guide needle into the space between the
00:33:19
eyeball and the wall of the eye socket just and it's the one that's like next to the bridge of your nose nope so the
00:33:26
inside and fiamberti was able to quickly and easily penetrate the sh it's a very
00:33:32
thin sheet of bone that separates the eye eye socket from the brain cavity you gotta go and once the frontal lobe was
00:33:39
now accessible the guide needle was removed and the leukotome was inserted where that was to
00:33:46
sever the connections the procedure was very quick and the side effects were minimal I guess
00:33:54
question mark question mark question mark typically they included like headaches yeah a black eye aches maybe a
00:34:02
fever every now and then but best of all at least from Walter Freeman's perspective was it was quick it was
00:34:09
simple could be performed in a doctor's office patient could leave a short time after
00:34:14
could they got discharged that same day at least for the most part what what the
00:34:21
actual [ __ ] oh yeah I'm just gonna be a little late to work today because I have
00:34:26
a lobotomy scheduled for this morning but I'm still going to make it in but I'll make it yeah don't worry about it
00:34:30
what the [ __ ] dude and honestly in 2023 with the way that work is oh if you were
00:34:36
like I have a lobotomy scheduled at noon they'd be like you better be here for the end of the [ __ ] day or you're
00:34:42
fired like you know at least here where we are America America um but the thing is here's the thing so
00:34:49
that sounds like whoa fiamberti like what are you doing holy [ __ ] but fiamberti he had only done it a handful
00:34:55
of times and he got bad results so you don't say he concluded that the risks of this procedure vastly outweighed the
00:35:03
benefits okay so he was like no we tried it didn't work moving on so but Walter was like I don't know I
00:35:12
think the one thing that it's missing is me oh yeah I think everything's life is
00:35:17
missing I think fee and Bertie didn't do it right but I think me with my skilled
00:35:23
hand and my genius and my confidence I think it could be a revolutionary process I don't understand how this
00:35:30
[ __ ] looked in the mirror and was like yeah I'm a good guy yeah I think he was like I got this sounds like
00:35:36
a narcissist he was like you know what the problem with fianbeerty's technique is fiamberti and not Walter Freeman so
00:35:43
he was like I think this will forever change mental illness procedures like I think I
00:35:48
can do this I think it did but not in the way he hoped so he he reasoned that fiamberti's bad results were because
00:35:55
quote probably because fiamberti's patients needed more that's all how do you even know that
00:36:02
they you know ah you don't don't ask questions don't worry about it that's real yeah you know he just knows that
00:36:09
why are you asking Walter Freeman questions he's telling you things why do you need to know uh but he also believed
00:36:15
that one of the problems with the procedure as it had been performed and this is where um
00:36:21
what people probably know the transorbital lobotomy by another name and we'll get to it right in a minute
00:36:28
um but he think thought that was the issue that you know fiamberti was doing it not him and the second issue was that
00:36:34
the procedure as it had been performed was it needed instruments that it was using
00:36:39
instruments that weren't sturdy enough in his uh in his opinions that they had a tendency to bend or break and he took
00:36:48
the he took the lead uh but he so he was like you know what we need something that is you know slender sharp tough
00:36:55
something that's not going to bend not gonna break and he found that instrument at home in a kitchen drawer in the form
00:37:03
of the Uline ice company's ice pick why the [ __ ] he had that in his kitchen drawer yeah
00:37:09
what the hell is Walter doing with an ice pick just you know ice picks you know you pick a nice deeply upsetting
00:37:16
yeah so Freeman wasted so that again that's as Ash said before you probably know the trans orbital
00:37:25
lobotomy you've probably heard it called an ice pick lobotomy oh my God that is why it's called an ice pick lobotomy
00:37:31
because he literally started it with a nice pick oh my God so he wasted no time perfecting his new technique over the
00:37:40
course of several weeks and on January 17 1946 he tested out the procedure on a real life person on 29 year old
00:37:48
housewife Sally Ellen linesco oh no um like many of his other patients she had a very long history of struggles
00:37:57
with depression anxiety she was also dealing with a lot of manic behavior and violent Behavior she was having bouts of
00:38:04
violence and in these bouts of violence she would strike her daughter oh no uh so having run out of any other options
00:38:10
Sally's husband brought her to see Freeman who quickly suggested this new technique and the couple together did
00:38:18
agree to do it and he had told this couple that it had been done in Italy a few times and it
00:38:25
was very quick easy low risk now remember meanwhile the umberte stopped doing it because of how awful the
00:38:33
outcome is working now after agreeing to the surgery he brought Sally into a private room she
00:38:39
was rendered unconscious and the way they did that was using an electroconvulsive machine to render you
00:38:45
income to unconscious I'm sorry what exactly what it sounds like um while this happened and Ash is like
00:38:52
speechless I have no words at this point while this happened a nurse would hold towels under the patient's nose and
00:38:59
mouth to collect any mucus or other fluids that would flow out of your orifices while this happens
00:39:04
Walter then peeled back Sally's eyelid inserted the ice pick into the orbital socket gave it a few
00:39:11
tap tap gentle taps with a hammer to break through the bone plate and once he had broken through he quote unquote
00:39:21
wiggled the ice pick about oh my God to sever the frontal lobes he has no idea what he's doing just just wiggling it
00:39:29
about because it's not even like you think about how they can use like cameras now like people I mean they're
00:39:36
surgeons now that can operate on fetuses in like in uterus utero like on a screen
00:39:45
they are doing brain surgery and heart surgery on fetuses in your I mean that is remarkable we're a magic species at
00:39:52
that point but like the camera they didn't even have a [ __ ] camera there wasn't even like so you don't how do you
00:39:57
know what you're doing you're just going in there and wiggling it about quote unquote like that is not a medical
00:40:02
procedure you are you are like a Frankenstein he's [ __ ] around and finding out that's all he's doing no the
00:40:08
problem is he's not finding out he's just [ __ ] around oh no he's finding out he's just not sharing that's all
00:40:14
he's finding out though oh my God he knew all these these results he just wasn't sharing them that's all he's such
00:40:21
a douchebag now as Sally was regaining Consciousness it appeared that the operation had been a failure because she
00:40:29
could not speak immediately after the procedure and she needed assistance walking
00:40:34
how do you do this to people but then in the days and weeks that followed Sally was showing what they referred to as
00:40:40
slow progress she regain the ability to walk and talk and she never experienced any of the
00:40:47
symptoms that had led them to coming into Freeman's office okay but um yeah her daughter Angeline said quote it felt
00:40:56
like he had given me a tremendous gift to give my mother back to me and after monitoring Sally's progress
00:41:03
for several weeks Walter happily reported that his patient was now enjoying good health
00:41:09
and in 2008 her daughter her daughter said that's changed that's quote from her the it felt like he had given me a
00:41:16
tremendous gift to give my mother back to me that was in 2008. wow so okay so it did work so he looked at this as
00:41:24
irrefutable evidence that this is successful across the board it's gonna help everyone that's just a one-off my
00:41:30
guy now after conducting just a few procedures he concluded that his technique was safe enough to operate on
00:41:36
both sides of the brain in the same day and decided to do so with his fourth patient can I ask you I don't know if
00:41:44
you'll have an answer do you have any idea why it would have worked do you think that could have been it I
00:41:51
think it's literally just luck yeah I truly do and I don't know I mean I'm gonna listen to
00:41:57
Angeline here and say her mother was uh pure functioning person and was cured but like me other results that they
00:42:06
looked at as desirable I guess could have been that that person just became docile right
00:42:12
um but I'm gonna listen to Angeline here if she says her mother was back her mother was back it sounds I think that's
00:42:17
I think the problem with the lobotomy is it's just a [ __ ] crap shoot right it's literally like
00:42:24
it's you there's no way that you can sit there and tell me you're doing it right
00:42:30
every time no and as we'll see he became a lot more impinged as he won it sounds
00:42:34
like it is there any possible way that he could have put the ice pick in a part of the brain where there were not
00:42:39
connections and maybe that's why it worked because no connections were severed and I mean who knows I mean your
00:42:45
brain is such an intricate and complex organ right it would be hard not to hit something of importance right that thing
00:42:51
but who knows I mean stranger things have happened you know um but he decided now that he was going
00:42:58
to operate on both sides of the brain in the same day and he used his fourth patient so he's done three that he's
00:43:04
considered successful those are like three and you decide to make that because like that is not a case study my
00:43:09
guy this is not tic-tac-toe myself so the fourth one his name was David Berman and unfortunately Walter never got to
00:43:16
operate on the second side of the brain to test his theory because Berman began hemorrhaging
00:43:21
because Freeman accidentally punctured a blood vessel in his brain oh my God I want you to picture
00:43:30
him hemorrhaging through his eyes was probably the most horrifying thing ever now he was Ho he was sent home after
00:43:38
this partial lobotomy and he ended up writing in his notes that this man recovered fairly well
00:43:46
what now he wrote that in his notes he recovered fairly well Berman suffered from seizures and partial paralysis as a
00:43:55
result of this [ __ ] up for the rest of his life he struggled for the rest of his life this man is the OG doctor death
00:44:03
truly like wow it's crazy not that you don't really hear more about him that's why I wanted to do this because if you
00:44:10
say the name Walter Freeman a lot of times it's like I don't know who that is yeah and it's like he did a load of [ __ ]
00:44:16
and it's like really he was a bad guy like this is a bad bad situation you literally hit someone's blood vessel in
00:44:26
their brain and say they recovered fairly it's gonna get worse after they Hemorrhage on your table it's gonna get
00:44:32
worse my friend wow so of course he's not going to be deterred by this failure when has he ever won Freeman and Watts
00:44:39
just charged ahead they just went right ahead with it and this was supposed to be something
00:44:46
that was a last resort initially when the Italian you know fiamberti made it created it he was touting it as it was
00:44:54
conceived as a last resort for the most impaired like this is your end of the road Hail Mary and he saw it wasn't
00:45:03
working so he was like this can't even be your last resort right they're doing it now not as that but as a quick fix
00:45:08
for everything they even did it for nervous indigestion oh my God and Suicidal Thoughts has
00:45:18
started like hysterical paralysis they called that like they anything that they any anything on the Spectrum
00:45:26
of illness especially mental illness they would recommend a prefrontal a transorbital lobotomy but even
00:45:34
indigestion yeah wow in some and it's crazy because some people in the medical field at this point where it's starting
00:45:41
to kind of come around to their theories because they were having some successes
00:45:45
so they're looking at it some of them as like you know we we judge this a little
00:45:50
bit and I think it can be something we're looking at they were thinking like there's something here there's something
00:45:53
here that maybe we can jump off but I don't know yeah a lot remains skeptical and they were warning that
00:46:00
there was risks that were just inherent to this procedure that you really couldn't work around and in December of
00:46:06
1947 for example Swedish psychiatrists the psychiatrist Dr ghosta Rylander addressed a conference of over 700
00:46:16
doctors and said although he had used the technique to some effect he thought it was a very risky approach to any kind
00:46:24
of illness and he said quote because of the personality deterioration that might
00:46:29
occur so he's saying yeah sure you might fix some of the issues that they said this person came in with but they're
00:46:36
going to become a docile zombie yeah potentially a hundred percent and like this just isn't worth it to like destroy
00:46:43
someone's personality and ability to do basic motor functions just to get them away from whatever they're struggling
00:46:50
with like we can do better here 100 now despite Dr rylander's insistence that this Lobby should really only be relied
00:46:57
on in extreme cases the most extreme Walter Freeman forged ahead and he said you know what I'm going to keep doing it
00:47:04
to literally anyone that shows up in my office regardless of age by the end of the 1940s Freeman and Watts were
00:47:12
performing dozens of lobotomies each week wow sometimes on kids as young as four or five years old
00:47:21
no yep yep until Walter this growing popularity and people flocking to him was just a
00:47:29
sign that he was doing something right and he was a success you feel so bad for these people because they don't know any
00:47:34
better they're thinking this is going to cure everything because you're gone budging results and there's no like Yelp
00:47:40
back then no or any kind of peer review but interestingly by 1950 James Watts his partner there was becoming a little
00:47:48
disturbed by the frequency with which people were turning to lobotomy and he was like wait a second like I think
00:47:56
this should be only in extreme cases like we shouldn't be doing this to [ __ ] four-year-olds like or how do
00:48:02
you put a four-year-old on that table Yeah shove a [ __ ] ice pick in there exactly into their brain oh my God and
00:48:09
then I mean you think about ruining the rest of somebody's life in general that's terrific you think of doing it at
00:48:15
four and like 80 years at least ahead of them that are just a [ __ ] drama that they're gonna have to deal with oh my
00:48:21
God so only one of them had real surgical training and that was James Watts okay and he took his role as the
00:48:29
surgeon in the two very seriously and they often clashed over what he considered to be Walter Freeman's very
00:48:37
Cavalier attitude about cutting into a person's [ __ ] brain yeah I think that you could be Cavalier about certain
00:48:43
things in life but not cutting into a person's brain not so much no and Watts was getting a little frustrated by that
00:48:48
and he was like this is a little weird gee I wonder why and Watts frustrations dated back to 1946 when he entered their
00:48:54
shared office one day and found Walter standing before a patient with two ice picks sticking out
00:49:02
of their eye sockets what casually he looked at watts and said Jim can you come here and hold the pics
00:49:09
while I take a photo what that's when Watts turned and left the room and they never shared an office
00:49:18
again but they continued to work together but that was in their shared office that he
00:49:24
walked into the shared office and that was what was happening he was like I would like my own office now I I would
00:49:29
like my own country now bye so I could move to it never see your ass again yeah that's how I would feel but by 1950 he
00:49:36
was even more disgusted by Walter's obsession with what he deemed quote a brain damaging operation and they ended
00:49:43
up parting ways in 1950. he turned into a Madman yep so but it was 1946 that he walked in and saw that like him standing
00:49:51
in front of a patient with two [ __ ] ice picks sticking out of their eyes by 1950 he was like [ __ ] you and he
00:50:02
ended up Watts described it but in 1950 as what he was like I see it as a brain damaging operation I'm surprised it took
00:50:09
four more years but I mean at least it happened yeah you know but this didn't slow down Walter's enthusiasm about the
00:50:15
surgery I had a feeling you were gonna say that yeah his most productive period in fact was between 1949 and 1952
00:50:22
because he got bold a span where thousands of trans orbital lobotomies were performed across the country oh my
00:50:29
God in fact during a two-week period in 1952 he visited a hospital in West Virginia and he performed in two weeks
00:50:37
228 lobotomies there's in the two week period there's no way you could even if it was a procedure that was like a
00:50:45
helpful procedure yeah performing that many no you would have to be exhausted by the end of it of course and like
00:50:51
losing your skill set as you're going through it I would think well what's worse exactly and what's worse is he's
00:50:57
kind of becoming like a celebrity at this point and that's going and now he had taken to performing lobotomies for
00:51:03
audiences no that's that is just beyond [ __ ] and he would then now he's going into like shock jock territory where he
00:51:11
like to quote shock his audience of doctors and nurses by performing two-handed lobotomies hammering ice
00:51:18
picks into both eyes at once I'm sorry is this the [ __ ] circus I mean yeah the circus is [ __ ] up in
00:51:24
and of itself so and that's from NPR in 2005 that quote but yeah he would literally
00:51:29
two ice picks one in each eye socket at once why would you even want to go see that I
00:51:35
don't know but despite his enthusiasm uh by the mid to late 1950s a growing awareness of the major risks associated
00:51:44
with lobotomies and the wide release of medications like chloropromazine either Thorazine
00:51:51
um led to a pretty dramatic decline in the Public's interest in Reliance on this procedure and aware of this that it
00:51:59
was declining in popularity and also gaining a reputation for being a little barbaric a little now Walter
00:52:06
began promoting the transorbital lobotomy as a cure for problems other than those related to mental health of
00:52:12
course so a lot of um so among those was the growing number of men who were publicly identifying as or being outed
00:52:21
and or arrested for being homosexual uh many of whom were committed by the fan by their own families or the courts
00:52:30
for their quote-unquote behavior I have to go this [ __ ] makes me so [ __ ] angry and this is really gonna get you
00:52:39
right now because this was like so angering to hear oh no by some estimates and this is
00:52:45
um this is from 2023 up to um up to 40 percent of Freeman's patients were gay men operated on to change their sexual
00:52:54
orientation yeah fun fact the knot you're not gonna do that 40 wow now as understandings of mental illness and
00:53:02
emotional health started to change in the 1960s um becoming a little more compassionate
00:53:09
a little more nuanced at least slightly especially from the 1950s yeah um Walter was growing increasingly
00:53:16
desperate to remain relevant and didn't want to turn away any patient regardless
00:53:21
of any symptoms or claims he just wanted to keep doing them and it's like it shouldn't be about you it should be
00:53:27
about yeah the your patience which clearly it never was and this is when Lou Deli brought her 12 year old stepson
00:53:36
Howard Deli to see Walter Freeman in the fall of 1960. um she described his issues as being a
00:53:46
major source of trouble for the family um and honestly when you hear what they were you're like so he's just like a 12
00:53:52
year old what were they um she said he objects to going to bed but then sleeps well
00:53:58
are you kidding me why is that not every child in the [ __ ] world he does a good deal of daydreaming and when asked
00:54:05
about it he says I don't know yeah me too still he turns the room's lights on when there's broad sunlight
00:54:12
outside this woman is a [ __ ] those are the reasons that she wanted a trans orbital
00:54:17
lobotomy for her 12 year old so what you're telling me is that she didn't like her stepson so she was like he's
00:54:21
annoying me history okay okay we can drill an ice pick into his brain if you want like okay and she's like that
00:54:29
sounds great rice and four days later Howard was delivered to Freeman's office without being told what was going to
00:54:36
happen oh my God where was his dad where was his mom yeah um now looking back on it Howard
00:54:46
believes his stepmother because he didn't live through it luckily oh God uh he believes his stepmother had never
00:54:51
wanted children and resented him for reasons he'll never understand yeah it sounds bad uh he said quote in 2005 he
00:54:57
told NPR my stepmother hated me I never understood why but it was clear she'd do
00:55:01
anything to get rid of me in prison for the rest of her [ __ ] life like if you don't want children
00:55:07
don't have them or don't marry somebody that has them that seems simple this was
00:55:13
this is what you've even Wilder she Lou Deli had taken Howard to several other doctors before Walter Freeman and they
00:55:20
all told her nothing is wrong with Howard and many of them told her it might be more of quote a stepmother
00:55:27
problem yeah sounds like it yeah wow now I hate her looking into Freeman's archives at the George Washington
00:55:34
University Library reveals a lot about Howard's surgery um there I mean it's Reckless to say the
00:55:43
least it said Mrs dully came in for a talk about Howard he wrote in his clinical notes things have gotten much
00:55:49
worse than she can barely endure it I explained to Mrs Deli that the family should consider the possibility of
00:55:54
changing Howard's personality by means of trans orbital lobotomy changing his personality not curing him of anything
00:56:00
just changing him let's change this kid now the procedure was done and it's failed at changing Howard's personality
00:56:06
so Lou dully turned to more Extreme Measures con and convinced her husband to give up his parental rights
00:56:13
what and made Howard a ward of the state what yeah I'm sorry what the [ __ ] is wrong with the dad there so oh there's
00:56:22
yeah [ __ ] both of them because now like this woman just hates her stepson didn't
00:56:26
want kids married a man with kids which like what the [ __ ] is your problem like
00:56:31
you knew what you were getting into [ __ ] right decided to get him a trans orbital lobotomy just to see if it would
00:56:38
[ __ ] ruin his personality and make him a zombie she wanted to throw him away when it didn't she convinced his
00:56:45
father to just abandon him I'm just yep I don't even know what to say to that and it this left him obviously
00:56:55
deeply traumatized I mean abandonment and the lobotomy they shoved ice picks into his eyeballs yeah he told NPR it
00:57:03
took me years to get my life together full Howard through it all I've been haunted by questions did I do something
00:57:09
to deserve this no can I ever be normal yes and most of all why did my dad let this happen why did your dad let this
00:57:16
happen some people I have like chills like my whole body it hurts for this child I
00:57:23
don't understand why people don't realize you don't have to have kids exactly if you don't want kids if you if
00:57:29
you are thinking that you could possibly give up your [ __ ] child yeah and like
00:57:35
rights to your child my 12 year olds I don't mean like give them up for adoption no like at just 12 years old oh
00:57:41
my God to just abandon your child because he's a nuisance to the new lady you married like that you're a [ __ ] up
00:57:47
individual and a [ __ ] rip my guy and this woman what the [ __ ] is wrong with you you [ __ ] monster blue what Lou
00:57:54
dully Lou dully you're a [ __ ] dull [ __ ] like I spit on you yeah I don't even you she
00:58:00
doesn't even deserve our spit so luckily Walter Freeman performed his last trans
00:58:06
uh orbital lobotomy in February of 1967 on a long-term patient of his his Helen Mortensen what do you mean long-term
00:58:14
patient um she had just been a patient of his several times he had been multiple about
00:58:19
I mean oh wow um the procedure was the third lobotomy that he had actually performed on Mortensen and unluckily
00:58:27
this is very sad it resulted in her death from a brain hemorrhage when Freeman nicked an artery is that the
00:58:34
only person so when I said luckily he performed his last one I mean like thankfully he was never allowed to do
00:58:39
one again right but it is horrific how this ended so so sorry so if I'm like are you ready no my
00:58:49
brain is like your brain on another level so he never killed anybody before that no that's at least on the books
00:58:56
yeah like that's this was the that's shocking yeah you've never killed one person
00:59:01
no I mean tragic like the fact that she had to die that's horrible oh it's horrific yeah and that she was a long
00:59:08
time patient she was obviously struggling to go through more than one and it's like that's how you went
00:59:13
hemorrhaging from a nicked artery in your brain oh my God now the accident resulted in Freeman being banned from
00:59:19
operating on anyone in the state of California bye [ __ ] and um honestly that's like it's kind of
00:59:25
wild that that's the that was the only consequence and only in California yeah like
00:59:31
obviously I know there's and you really didn't have a lot of like formal surgical training that's the other thing
00:59:36
like the fact that this was the first one he's just shoving ice picks into people's brains definitely really wild
00:59:43
those odds right there truly but he so he lost his ability to perform the procedure that he had invented and
00:59:49
advocated on for decades and he officially retired and spent the next several years traveling around the
00:59:55
country conducting follow-up studies on his former patients until he died from cancer on May 31st 1972. now over the
01:00:05
course of his decades-long career he conducted approximately 3 500 lobotomies holy [ __ ] three quarters of those were
01:00:14
trans orbital or ice pick lobotomies nearly 500 of those resulted eventually in the death of the patient and that's
01:00:24
according to UK and that's from 2023 the dark history of gay men lobotomies and Walter Jackson Freeman wow
01:00:33
um so a event 500 people eventually died of whatever injuries they sustained from
01:00:40
it I think with his last one with Helen it was more of a immediate thing that caused him to lose the license right
01:00:50
um well some of Freeman's patients likely those that were operated on a the more
01:00:56
surgically inclined James Watts I would think did feel their lives were improved by
01:01:02
the procedure wow the reality was that the results varied so widely I mean it hit all Spectra it was literally like
01:01:11
playing roulette yeah it was just you see what happens right like there was no Rhyme or Reason to it it so that's not a
01:01:19
good procedure that's not a good procedure when you're literally just rolling a dice and it can land anyway
01:01:26
they would sign up for that knowing those odds exactly and he was also Reckless he was Reckless with it and he
01:01:33
was egotistical and he just wanted it done quick that's the thing he never put forth the real effort that should have
01:01:40
gone into creating a procedure like this because maybe had he actually put effort
01:01:44
in he could have figured something out in something in there in the beginning wanted to make a a good difference
01:01:54
take suffering from people wanted to cure mental illness wanted to take this away
01:02:00
it just got lost in ego I was gonna say in himself um yeah and just in in patience the need
01:02:08
for celebrity Fame exactly and just there was a lot that really just it tampered down any of that good that was
01:02:15
in there to begin with I do believe there was some good in the beginning that good intentions that just were
01:02:20
completely washed away throughout this and it's really sad to see that somebody could turn into that this is one of the
01:02:27
most tragic cases yeah ever and luckily the transorbital lobotomy definitely faded out over the course of the 60s and
01:02:35
the 70s and was considered pretty obsolete by the 1980s but still neurosurgeon and author Dr Henry Marsh
01:02:43
cautions against judging men like Walter Freeman too harshly he says quote their theory was based on
01:02:51
this terribly crude simplistic view of the brain that the brain was a simple mechanism and you could just sort of
01:02:57
stick things into it he wrote and reflecting on the history of the now Unthinkable practice of lobotomy Marsh
01:03:03
said this business of dividing doctors into heroes and villains is wrong the generation of Surgeons who trained me
01:03:10
had I wouldn't say god-like Powers but they had enormous Authority nobody questioned them or queried them and I
01:03:17
can think of some of the people who trained me who are essentially decent people who had been corrupted by this
01:03:22
power and became a little bit monstrous as a result that's kind of what we were just saying
01:03:28
about Walter Freeman though how he lost him is that like these essentially decent people get corrupted by this
01:03:36
god-like power bestowed on them right and it turns them monstrous which and it's like that is synonymous with evil
01:03:43
that's the thing so it's but it's like they don't begin that way right they don't all begin that way you know what I
01:03:48
mean like this is a very this isn't a black and white no thing like he did not begin as an evil villain who was out to
01:03:56
[ __ ] people over and kill people and he wasn't he didn't want to kill people that's the thing like he was his ego
01:04:02
took over and his you know need for fame and his need to do things quickly and to
01:04:07
have his name on this procedure and be revolutionary and all this and it took over any kind of forethought into well
01:04:16
maybe we do need to take some time to perfect this we do need to do some more research we do need to figure out how we
01:04:23
can make sure that we're not just wiggling about an ice pick and instead figure bring out how to Target specific
01:04:30
things that we do lots of research on that we find out when we target this thing this is what happens instead of
01:04:36
just being like yeah we'll just sever a few things and see what happens the other part that I I think is interesting
01:04:42
that Marsh pointed out was how back then there was such like a simplistic view of
01:04:48
the brain like it wasn't looked at as it's this complex as complex as it really is
01:04:54
so I think that also kind of informed a lot of these Reckless things that people
01:05:00
would do but again he just turned into a monster he really did like he there's really no getting away from the
01:05:07
end of that it's like turned into a villain and he waited until he was retired to go check up on all his former
01:05:13
patients it's like I don't know maybe you should have done that while you were doing the procedures 100 that's just
01:05:18
Humanity like it's like and to make sure like you got to check up on them and see
01:05:23
that they're still living functional lives to be able to say that that was a successful procedure and that's the
01:05:28
thing exactly like how can you you can't say your procedure is successful when you're not doing it but that's how they
01:05:34
were all able to do it like um Moniz there who made the original Lucado you know the original lobotomy right we know
01:05:41
now as the lobotomy and he made the device too right he he didn't make the device but he he was the one who would
01:05:49
literally like not check up on the patients and just mark them off as a success because they didn't die in his
01:05:54
office that's cheating and they looked a little docile when they left it's like he would not check up on them after a
01:06:00
couple weeks and then he'd just like success and it's like no no no no some of these things are going to show up
01:06:04
down the line you got to make sure that you didn't and [ __ ] something up that's
01:06:07
going to show up a month or two later a year later right like you can't measure you can't Mark that as a success and
01:06:11
that's why I feel like you can't really like measure your own success necessarily in this case it should be
01:06:16
like a board should have been over seeing all of this like there there's so many things that should have happened
01:06:22
here that unfortunately just didn't because things at a different time implemented now luckily right to kind of
01:06:29
Safeguard probably some of this stuff but somewhat because honestly this probably had a little bit to do with it
01:06:35
because it's like this is just Reckless it's just Reckless Behavior it's Reckless monstrous Behavior completely
01:06:40
and for I mean I'm glad that James Watts kind of realized like I gotta get the situation at some point and I like what
01:06:47
I said earlier I'm pretty sure the the ones that were success at all were probably done by him because he was the
01:06:53
only one skill yeah he was the only real surgeon on the team just the fact that Walter Freeman had no no surgical
01:06:59
training barely any surgery like no like formal surgery like he did he he had obviously done it for medical school and
01:07:04
such when you think about what doctors have to go through now to like yeah like pre-med like you have to go through all
01:07:12
the different rounds and all the different like various types of I don't even know like the correct way
01:07:18
to say it oh yeah like you have to go through exactly you have to hit all the different levels you have to go through
01:07:23
all these different rounds of it doesn't sound like it was like that one yeah it
01:07:27
was a different situation for sure that's so crazy and now they make you hit like every department so you have a
01:07:34
vast understanding of everything right I remember because all the [ __ ] the the
01:07:39
uh trainees like hated coming down to the more work for their rotation through the morgue and when you had your one of
01:07:46
your C-sections wasn't there like yeah there was a there was like a trainees that came in they asked me if it was a
01:07:53
mind and I was like yeah they need to be they're going to be doctors someday they
01:07:56
should see one yeah because I'm not going to tell them no that's at that point you don't give a [ __ ] you're like
01:08:01
sure everyone come in you're like just but but yeah wow that is Dr Walter Freeman and the trans orbital lobotomy
01:08:08
slash ice picklebotomy I don't even have words left that is something that's a story that
01:08:16
will always stick with me it's a it's a rough one and just all the people's lives that were affected so negatively
01:08:21
even even the people that like it was a success you know yeah like they still had some kind of After Effects and it's
01:08:29
a dramatic thing to go through no matter what the two that stuck out to me the most in this part are obviously Rosemary
01:08:35
Kennedy and Howard there I know how nothing he Daydreams he Daydreams and he leaves the lights on when the sun lights
01:08:43
and doesn't want to go to sleep but then sleeps great it's like you're just a kid
01:08:46
you have a child yeah you you have yourself a bona fide human child wow like I'm an adult and I leave lights on
01:08:55
sometimes I don't even believe in hell but that woman's in Hell she's somewhere I'll tell you that much
01:09:00
well thank you for listening we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that any of this
01:09:10
because oh my God ice picks in your eyes no thanks oh my God not for me dog [Music]
01:09:27
foreign [Music] [Laughter] he sounded like a Slurpee frog are there other types of many kinds of
01:10:06
frogs she did sound like a creepy frog