Walter Freeman Pt. 2 | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

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

American neurologist Walter Jackson Freeman had refined Moniz’s procedure and developed a non-surgical procedure that could be performed in a doctor’s office, which he called a transorbital lobotomy. Freeman’s procedure involved inserting a medical instrument similar to an icepick into the patient’s orbital socket to sever the neural connections, without requiring surgery, hospital stays, and long recovery times. Touted as a quick, easy, and painless solution to everything from general malaise and occasional depression to schizophrenia and aggressive behavior, the procedure a go-to solution for the very complex psychological problems that have affected countless people for centuries. Unfortunately, while the procedure was effective for a small number of those who received a lobotomy, it was used indiscriminately, often without consideration for the increasingly disastrous outcomes.

Today we talk about the tragic and disastrous lobotomy on Rosemary Kennedy and thousands more that occurred after it.

References El-Hai, Jack. 2005. The Lobotomist : A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Press.

Kaye, Hugh. 2023. The dark history of gay men, lobotomies and Walter Jackson Freeman II. April 25. Accessed July 19, 2023. https://www.attitude.co.uk/culture/sexuality/the-dark-gay-history-of-lobotomies-and-walter-jackson-freeman-ii-419069/.

Lenz, Lyz. 2017. The Secret Lobotomy of Rosemary Kennedy. March 31. Accessed July 18, 2023. https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a26261/secret-lobotomy-rosemary-kennedy/.

National Public Radio. 2005. Frequently asked questions about lobotomies. November 16. Accessed July 18, 2023. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014565.

—. 2005. 'My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's journey. November 16. Accessed July 18, 2023. https://www.npr.org/2005/11/16/5014080/my-lobotomy-howard-dullys-journey.

New York Times. 1939. "Front brain 'rules' thoughts on future." New York Times, April 8: 6.

—. 1947. "Personality shift is laid to surgery." New York Times, December 14: 51.

Prentice, Claire. 2021. "Lobotomy: The brain op described as ‘easier than curing a toothache’." BBC News, January 30.2008. American Experience: The Lobotomist. Directed by Public Broadcasting System. Performed by Public Broadcasting System.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

The episode discusses Rosemary Kennedy's tragic lobotomy and the unethical practices of Walter Freeman in mental health treatment.

Key points

Meeting Cinderella. A heartwarming encounter with Cinderella leaves the kids starstruck.
The Tragic Story of Rosemary Kennedy. Exploring the sad history of Rosemary Kennedy's life and her family's struggles.
The Macabre Lobotomy. Rosemary Kennedy recites poetry while undergoing a lobotomy, a haunting juxtaposition of beauty and horror.
20 Years of Silence. Rosemary lived in a facility for 20 years without family visits, highlighting the tragedy of her situation.
The Ice Pick Lobotomy. Walter Freeman introduces the ice pick lobotomy, a shocking and dangerous procedure.
Sally's Recovery. Sally shows slow but significant progress after a failed operation, regaining her ability to walk and talk.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Cinderella knows mom holy [ __ ]!

A magical moment with Cinderella leaves the kids in awe.

2:20WatchAug 22, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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