There was a time when people with severe mental illness might be given an operation to sever connections in the brain. Lobotomy became one of the most notorious surgical procedures of the 20th Century ...

Howard Dully got a lobotomy at age 12. "By some miracle, it didn't turn me into a zombie, or crush my spirit, or kill me," he told NPR in 2005 as an adult. "But it did affect me deeply." Lobotomies ...

Reading Richard McNally’s review of “Desperate Remedies” (Books, May 14), I am reminded that the frontal lobotomy, now considered barbaric, was worthy of a Nobel Prize in my grandparents’ era. I have ...

St. Elizabeths Hospital was home to one of the most notorious laboratories in U.S. history, where the doctor who developed ...

In the early 20th century we had very little understanding of mental illness and how to treat it. Into this knowledge vacuum stepped Walter Freeman, a charismatic American neurologist with a bold ...

Antônio Egas Moniz (1874-1955) of Portugal was an ambitious and multitalented person -- a neurologist, political figure, and man of letters. By the 1930s he was already known for his successful ...

Following the lobotomy, Rosemary was sent to live at a Catholic facility for the mentally disabled in Jefferson, Wisconsin Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty A ...