...Phineas Gage and the “American Crowbar Case”. Samantha Romero PY3150 Ms. Dreskin 01-01-2015 ITT Technical Institute Phineas Gage and the “American Crowbar Case” There was a man named Phineas Gage who at 25 years old suffered a severe head injury in the year 1848, he was handsome with a pleasant disposition (Guidotti, T., 2012). The accident took place on a railroad near Cavendish, Vermont where Phineas was working (Guidotti, T., 2012). Phineas poured blasting powder into the borehole of the train track but neglected to add sand, when he tamped it down with his ‘crowbar’ the bar shot out going through his left cheek, destroying his left eye and rocketing out of his skull and landing 80 feet away (Guidotti, T., 2012). This is proven to be even more impressive because Phineas never fully lost consciousness and even considering he lost his left eye completely and neurosurgery had yet to be developed (Guidotti, T., 2012). The biggest deficit Phineas suffered was reported as a drastic change in personality and character (Guidotti, T., 2012). According to Guidotti’s article in 2012 Phineas went from being known as a “reliable, systematic and hardworking” man and after the accident was said to be “impulsive, disorganized and stubborn. His language was said to be colorfully profane, although he did not customarily swear before the injury” (Guidotti, T., 2012). Since there were no neurosurgeons during this time period, his specific injury while unfortunate allowed for some documentation...
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...to this as surgery on a specific area will affect a certain behaviour/function (i.e damage to the frontal lobe will affect personality and emotions). This idea underlies psychosurgery as the intention is to disrupt a particular brain function in order to suppress the symptoms of mental illness. The historical basis for psychosurgery came from the case of Phieas Gage which highlighted that the frontal lobes are linked to personality (but not intelligence or memory). Furthermore, Moinz reported research where monkeys with aggresive tendencies were subdued after frontal lobes removed. In the 1940's and 1950's lobotonies were performed on patients with mental illness to control their aggressive symptoms. For example, with the transorbital lobotomy, the patient is made unconscious via ECT and then a sharp object is inserted into the eye socket into the patient's brain so nerves could...
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...Mad in America, by Robert Whitaker, details the history of the mental illness treatments in our country, including one of the most infamous, the lobotomy. The brain altering procedure was widely praised by medical professionals at the time it was popular in the 1930s through 1950s (Whitaker, 2002). Today, Americans generally view the lobotomy as a cruel, ineffective treatment. Closer examination reveals that the operation was ineffective, unfounded, and inhumane. (Whitaker, 2002). The lobotomy was a surgical procedure that evolved over time. The main purpose of the method was to damage the frontal lobe of the brain (Whitaker, 2002). The first type was the prefrontal lobotomy, which was first performed in humans in 1935 (Whitaker, 2002)....
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...THE OBSTACLES OF SCIENCE Nowadays, our lives have completely intertwined with science. It is crucial for every part of our lives. While we are enjoying or studying, we use returns of science. In short, it is indispensable for our society. In spite of its enormous importance, most people do not know what science is and what its problems are. Michael Shermer’s definition for science is “Science is not affirmation of a set of beliefs, but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation” (Kida, 2006, p.72). This definition has some important points. Science is a process and it does not dictate truth. It is open to rejection. The process of looking for truth consists of experiments, peer review and publication. However, these steps are not perfect. They have some problems. Experimental problems such as loose controls and unexpected results, lack of peer review and wrong publications of media are the biggest obstacles for science because they can mislead people. Firstly, one of the obstacles for science is experimental issues. Doing an experiment is a very important part of the scientific process. It is almost the only way to prove and legitimate our truths, also experiments are the keystone for science. However, conditions can affect our results. Loose control is one of the problems of this step. During an experiment, all of variables must be under control except one to understand which variables affect which results...
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...The lobotomy was a procedure that was done to disconnect the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain. At first the procedure was welcomed but then people started to realize that it was unsafe, unsanitary, and inhumane. This procedure was made famous by a man named Walter Freeman. Walter Freeman was a nice looking and well educated man. He had learned of a procedure done by Dr. Moniz where you disconnect the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain and Walter decided to use it himself. Dr. Freeman renamed the procedure the lobotomy and he performed approximately 5,000 of them. That’s not all that Walter did, he taught other employees in mental hospitals how to do them and approximately 50,000 lobotomies were performed in the U.S. One of Dr....
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...Very few procedures have caused as much controversy in the medical world as the lobotomy. It is the practice of cutting out portions of the brain in an attempt to calm the patient. With many years of studies and advancements in modern technology, it was found that lobotomies were not as helpful as they once seemed. Due to current knowledge of scientists, the lobotomy is hardly ever used today. The lobotomy happened in 1881 by Friederich Goltz on dogs. According to Osman (2011), when experimenting on the dogs, Goltz found that if part of the brain was removed, the dogs were more subdued. Many psychology experiments start with animals and then eventually move to humans; this is also true for the lobotomy. Gottlieb Burckhardt worked...
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...subdued the minds of the populations which allows them to think that doctors can fix anything because they have a degree. There are many instances in early times of medicine that parents or adults in general trust the practices; the strong logical trust instilled in the minds of the uneducated defers from the moral standpoint of some cases. In the memoir My Lobotomy by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming, a young boy is ultimately faced with a lobotomy due to his behavioral issues. As Howard becomes more aware of what is happening, the lobotomy he had performed was unnecessary due to the lack of emotions placed behind such a life altering decision. As the memoir unfolds, a plethora of evidence is distributed that unveils the reasoning(s)...
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...Can you imagine letting someone stick a pointy object in your eye ball and letting them scramble your brains? This is what Rosemary Kennedy, along with thousands of others went through. Today’s medical field has improved since those times. Lobotomy is one of the horrid medical treatments that used to be used. Rosemary Kennedy was a fearless, strong woman up until she was 23. She had shown some violent behavior, although nothing serious, and her father decided to force her into getting a lobotomy for her “moodiness.” Dr. Walter Freeman had performed only sixty-five lobotomies by 1941, which is when she received the procedure. It left her totally incontinent; She would often stare at completely blank walls, and her speech and verbals skills were diminished to merely an unintelligent babble. Eight years following her procedure, she had to be moved into a home for the disabled. Due to her lowered mental capacity, she became detached from her family. She later passed away of natural causes....
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...Lobotomy is when the doctors would perform brain surgery. They insert a small incision to the prefrontal lobe of the brain. Lobotomy was first brought to the United States over 75 years ago. The first lobotomy in the U.S was performed by Walter Freeman and he operated on a Kansas house wife. Walter Freeman also created the 10-minute Trans orbital lobotomy (known as the “ice-pick” lobotomy), which was first performed at his Washington, D.C. office on January 17, 1946. He wanted it to be easy instead of just drilling into the brain so he came up with this idea of an ice pick instrument. He would stick the instrument into just above the eye and would swipe left to right and then would move to the other eye and the same thing with the instrument. Lobotomies were used to treat Schizophrenia and severe depression. Physicians even used it to treat chronic or severe pain and backaches. If I was in a psychiatric ward and a doctor tried to do this to me they would have to kill me. I couldn’t imagine getting an ice pick type instrument going in just above your eye and then the doctor scraping all in the brain. I am glad that they do not perform this operation I feel as if the operation is not humane. What if the doctor accidently shoved it all the way through your brain and you died how crazy would that be. Bibliography...
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...the works of Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt, who was the first to perform an attempt at human psychosurgery. Then, on November 12, 1935, a new psychosurgery procedure was performed in Portugal under the direction of the neurologist and physician Egas Moniz His new "leucotomy" procedure, intended to treat mental illness, took small coring's of the patient's frontal lobes. Moniz became a mentor and idol for Freeman who modified the procedure renaming it the "lobotomy". Instead of taking coring's from the frontal lobes, Freeman's procedure severed the connection between the frontal lobes and the thalamus. Because Freeman lost his license to perform surgery himself after his last patient died on the operating table, he enlisted neurosurgeon James Watts as a research partner. Together, Freeman and Watts performed as many as 3,439 lobotomies in four decades, 2,500 of which used his ice pick method. In 1967, Freeman performed his last lobotomy before being banned from operating. After he performed the third lobotomy on a longtime patient of his, she developed a brain hemorrhage and passed...
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... Men justice condemned to death criminals, according to the biblical law “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” That was millenniums ago, but today when humanity is supposedly be more advanced and educated, jet we believe that the killing a murder is acceptable by God and men’s justice system. I believe that life in prison is a more acceptable condemn, because the criminal will suffer the imprisonment, separated from the society. I believe that that is more humane punishment. This action is more humane in deed, but costly for society, so what solution can we find? There is a humane process called “lobotomy.” Used in the past to cure mental sick people. About 50,000 lobotomies were performed in the United States. Lobotomy consists of cutting or scraping away most of the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. The procedure of the "trans orbital" lobotomy involved lifting the upper eyelid and placing the point of a thin surgical instrument, called the ice pick, under the eyelid and against the top of the eye socket. A mallet was used to drive the orbit clast through the thin layer of bone and into the brain along the plane of the bridge of the nose, around fifteen degrees toward the interhemispheric fissure. The orbit clast was malleted five centimeters (2 in) into the frontal lobes, and then pivoted forty degrees at the orbit perforation so the tip cut toward the opposite side of the head (toward the nose). The instrument was returned to the neutral position...
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... Men justice condemned to death criminals, according to the biblical law “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” That was millenniums ago, but today when humanity is supposedly be more advanced and educated, jet we believe that the killing a murder is acceptable by God and men’s justice system. I believe that life in prison is a more acceptable condemn, because the criminal will suffer the imprisonment, separated from the society. I believe that that is more humane punishment. This action is more humane in deed, but costly for society, so what solution can we find? There is a humane process called “lobotomy.” Used in the past to cure mental sick people. About 50,000 lobotomies were performed in the United States. Lobotomy consists of cutting or scraping away most of the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex. The procedure of the "trans orbital" lobotomy involved lifting the upper eyelid and placing the point of a thin surgical instrument, called the ice pick, under the eyelid and against the top of the eye socket. A mallet was used to drive the orbit clast through the thin layer of bone and into the brain along the plane of the bridge of the nose, around fifteen degrees toward the interhemispheric fissure. The orbit clast was malleted five centimeters (2 in) into the frontal lobes, and then pivoted forty degrees at the orbit perforation so the tip cut toward the opposite side of the head (toward the nose). The instrument was returned to the neutral position...
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...Yiran Cheng Mr. Schaffer ENG4U1 Monday, April 26, 2016 Critique of 1950 America’s Society in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the author obvious intention can be easily seen in analogies the author draws. For example, he makes an analogy between the mental institution in the story and a small society, which is the very epitome of that period. He makes an analogy between the patients in the mental institution and the common people in 1950s American society. He also makes an analogy between the nurses and the authorities in mid-twentieth century of America. The rules in the hospital are same as the dogma and law in American society. The common people have to strictly follow the dogmatic rules and the autocracy; freedom does not exist. The patients in the book are like machines. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, using the analogy of a mental institution, suggests that 1950s American society is not free and that people need to rise up to try to change it. Firstly, the Big Nurse’s manipulation and subtle cruelty cannot give enough freedom for the patients. Secondly, the main elements of control are self-inflicted; the fear that holds them down is internal. Thirdly, McMurphy is a messianic figure, and his doom is inevitable. He brings liberation to others, and this is the true meaning to his own life. First, Nurse Ratched’s manipulation and subtle cruelty mirrors discrimination of the era. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the chief...
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...When looking at a tragic hero, the first thing that comes to mind is a type of character that starts as a low key person, and then becomes relevant person within society. In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the mail McMurphy is a god like human in the minds of the other patients and gives them life as his time dwindles at the institution. Someone in my mind that reminds me of McMurphy is Barry Bonds. In his life, he started his career as a one of the most looked at players until he was tested positive for steriods. Randall McMurphy and Barry Bonds share the character traits of determination, arrogance, and isolation. To begin, the up forth of R.P McMurphy and Barry Bonds’s glory came to be from the determination they have to be the best at what they do. McMurphy, along the road for his rise amongst the patients at the home, could not have happened if it was not for the lack of enthusiasm he saw in the faces of the people he was with every day of his life at the institution. “Damn, what a sorry-looking outfit. You boys don’t look so crazy to me” (Kesey 19). McMurphy knows these men have been dragged down for being in the institution and believes in himself to help them. One way he gets them to see how his personality is, is by loosening them up and trying to me them feel better about themselves. In comparison to Barry Bonds, the way he went up in the ladder was by playing the game of baseball how every American loved to watch it be played, with lots of...
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...Unnoticed Antisocial Personality Disorder The treatment available for any type of mental illness in the 1960’s didn’t have much diversity to it only ranging from a couple of medications like “chloryl hydrate, bromides, and barbiturates” to sedate the patients and lobotomies that were used during this time but they had a high death rate of “twenty five percent” and leftmost showing “a total absence of feeling” (Foerschner). The first antidepressant was introduced in the 1980’s by the name of “Prozac” before this there was no medication that could properly treat depression (Foerschner). With the very limited treatments for mental illness, it was very hard to cure and help mental illness in the 1960’s. In modern day there are many different approaches...
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