Pshycosurgery Essay Research Paper IntroductionOne Flew Over

Pshycosurgery Essay, Research Paper

Introduction

One Flew Over the Cockoo s Nest presents a flashing array of images and scenes that are impossible to ignore and impossible to forget. One particular scene, where Jack Nicholson is being led to bed with a marring scar on his forehead, is among the most socially disturbing. For, we find it hard to believe that humanity had “scrambled” the brains of those who could not live within the confines of society. Nicholson s character received a pre-frontal lobotomy. No other medical procedure has been as denounced and renowned at the same time. A precursor to modern-day psychiatry, the frontal lobotomy radically changed the way we view the mind-body problem. In addition, it changed the way we viewed the mentally insane, the medical community, and more importantly: ourselves. In the height of the lobotomy, surgeons were merely playing a guessing game. The frontal-lobotomy was an evolutionary back-step and further psychosurgical guessing games can only catapult the psychological field into an age of medical animism. Psychosurgery poses serious ethical and societal implications far beyond our comprehension.

Background

Psychosurgery is characterized as a procedure designed to alter disordered mental states by removing, destroying or severing apparently healthy brain tissue (Selensick 254). It is construed in this way to distinguish it from brain surgery, where the immediate object of surgical intervention is seen as the removal or treatment of some diseased or damaged portion of the brain. A concrete example of brain surgery is the removal of a brain tumor. This procedure seeks to eliminate an abnormality in the brain tissues with little or no emphasis on psychological improvement . Few ethical questions arise when removing damaged tissues. However, the frontal lobotomy sought to change disordered behaviors through structural damages to healthy tissue in the brain. Although abstract, an obvious distinction forms when the two procedures are compared. One problem in the definition does arise when diseases such as Alzheimer s and Parkinson s are considered. No apparent anatomical abnormality exists in these diseases. Should a surgical procedure exist to correct them, they would be classified as brain surgery. This procedure would be classified thusly because it deals not with a mood, personality, or psychotic disorder. Clearly these definitions are vague and abstract and perhaps as our insight to the matter grows, our definitions will become absolute and invariable. Ultimately it is important to remember that psychosurgery seeks to change a personality, mood or psychotic disorder.

The widespread modern-day use of psychosurgery is generally considered to date from the work of a Portuguese neurologist, Dr Egas Moniz, in 1935 (Kleing 6). Although Moniz was not the first to use similar procedures, his work stimulated a world-wide interest on the topic. His first work was inspired by the tranquilizing effect on primates whose frontal lobes had been removed. At the time, Moniz knew well the expanses of literature that dealt with human deficiencies associated with lesions of the frontal lobe. Nonetheless, Moniz pushed on. With consideration to the elementary understanding of brain function at the time, Moniz cannot be blamed for his tunnel vision that characterized the psychiatric community of that time.

Initially, brain tissue was destroyed by injections of alcohol into the frontal lobe (Gray 534). Alcohol was injected to destroy the frontal lobe in a “non-intrusive” manner. Far from non-intrusive, holes were drilled into the skulls of the first patients. A four inch hypodermic needle was to be inserted into two places of the frontal lobe and the solution injected. Any other clear rational behind the use of alcohol is not known. Overall the procedure was hastily devised and hastily practiced. Surgical preparations consisted of inserting a needle into a brain from the local morgue to determine the angle and depth at which the needle would be inserted. These preparations lasted a half-hour. The first patient was a sixty-three-year-old woman suffering from anxiety and well-established paranoid ideas (Valenstein 102). Moniz called the operation a success (456), however he gave little behavioral information about the post-operative-patient. It is apparent his opinion came from a deep-rooted desire to succeed. Moniz tried the alcohol-injection procedure on several more patients, receiving only marginal results. Moniz soon resorted to more direct methods of tissue destruction.

On December 27, 1935, Moniz used the luecotome in his first frontal lobotomy. This spear-shaped device was inserted into the frontal lobes through burr holes drilled in the skull (Kalat 459). The device resembled an apple-corer and when rotated in the frontal lobe, spherical cores of brain tissue could be destroyed. Moniz performed many operations in quick succession. He reported favorable results. Soon after, his device and procedure were replicated throughout the world. Its use peaked in 1949, the year Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize. Use of this procedure remained high until 1955, when there was a noticeable decline. It is estimated that between 1936 and 1978 some 35,000 operations were performed in the United States (Nesse 365). World-wide the figure is about double that of the US. It is important to remember that during these