Orbitofrontal Lobotomy
Being performed here by Dr. Walter Freeman.
The technique is to basically first shock the patient with an electrical current to “anesthetize” them, and then stick an ice pick above the eyeball and into the socket. Then a hammer would be taken to hit the ice pick into the brain area through the cranial bone. The ice pick would then be swirled around to “scramble” the frontal lobe of the brain.
Dr. Walter Freeman was banned from performing this surgery when he killed a woman while performing this procedure. When he had the ice pick inside the patient, he stepped back to take a picture, and accidentally hit the ice pick so that it went into the brain further. The patient, Helen Mortensen, was seeing Dr. Freeman for her third lobotomy. She died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Dr. Freeman’s license to perform this surgery was taken away.
Ice pick = orbitoclast
Dr. Freeman = neurologist (not a surgeon!)
