(gentle spooky music) - Hi friends, I hope you're
having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and this is the Dark History podcast. Welcome to my Dark History library. If you're curious cat like myself, then come on this journey with me and let's learn something
new together, shall we? So, today let me tell
you about today's story. Because I was laying in bed,
had my eyes closed, right? And I was thinking to myself and I remembered in high school, I had this science teacher who proudly displayed a skull
with a hole in his head, like on his desk. And I remember I asked the
teacher and I was like, what is that thing on your desk? You know, whatever. And he was like, "Oh,
it's a lobotomy skull." And I was like, "Well,
what the hell is that?" He said that it was a way
that they treated depression way back in the olden days. And I really never gave it
much thought after that. Plus I'm pretty sure that
teacher ended up in prison, now, so like, honestly, that's really what I remember him for, you know, and whatever,
not the skull on his desk. So it's actually very fitting now. But during quarantine, I just had a lot of free time to think about those
lost memories I've had, and that skull popped into my noggin. So I decided, you know, let me look up, let me start Googling
what a lobotomy me is. And you know how that goes, rabbit hole! Next thing you know, 3:00 a.m, and I'm watching surgery
on YouTube from like 1942. Plus at first I was
spelling lobotomy wrong. I'll spell it, Loubotomy, and it was leading me to like
all these weird adult sites. It was like just these weird videos about this guy named Lou and something about him being a bottom. I don't know, it completely
went over my head. I was like, when do we get
to the holes in the head? You know, so three hours and $13 later, it turns out nothing goes
into the holes in the head other than an ice pick. Good to know, good to know. But then I finally weed
through all the bullshit and learned that once upon a time, there was like this cure-all treatment for mental illness
called lobotomy, oh yeah. Anyhow, if you're wondering, a lobotomy is a surgery where they cut tiny
pieces of your brain out until you no longer have
hopes, dreams, or feelings. I know, it all started
way back in the 1900s, as this experimental surgery meant to treat schizophrenia in order to make
"undesirables more agreeable." And I'm using air quotes if you're listening to
this on the podcast. "Undesirable more agreeable." And, yes, those are the actual words doctors use to describe
actual mental health patients. Back then mental health was considered this disgusting stain on society and anyone who needed help
was either shipped off or hidden away with their judgmental eyes. Then there were some doctors who came up with this terrifying idea of just cutting the part of your brain that makes you feel things. So you're just basically
a shell of a person. Well, surprise, surprise, it didn't work. And it just made like many
patients complete zombies or made their conditions so much worse that they needed to be committed to an asylum for the rest of their lives. Yeah, why do you think
"American Horror Story" made a whole season about
a 1920 psych facility? It was terrifying. The surgery was rarely
endorsed by popular science, but instead by a couple of
guys with some daddy issues who were charging an arm and a leg, I mean an arm and a brain
to have it performed. Sometimes these people were given lobotomies
without their consent, and would only find out
about them later in life after wondering for years, why the fuck they couldn't make a salad without having a full blown meltdown? Can you even imagine there wasn't any other option
for anxiety or depression, this was the option. Stick something in your
brain or be labeled as crazy. And you did not wanna be labeled
as crazy in the mid 1930s, nay nay. Anyway, I digress. This surgery in some cases would make the patient's
brain totally useless, and some people would be
left with no brain activity. It's honestly mind blowing. Wait, I didn't mean like, yeah, nevermind. When you look at who was
actually getting these lobotomies it was 60% women and people
diagnosed as "schizophrenic". I'm using air quotes again. But back then, a lot of
things meant schizophrenic. Where like fell under the
schizophrenia umbrella, okay. If you had anxiety, depression, insomnia, suicidal dilutions, melancholia, whatever the hell that is, homosexual tendencies,
nervous indigestion, hysterical paralysis. And this is the most important, the chronic headache. That is what was considered schizophrenic. It would transform wild
animals into gentle creatures. So these doctors just did thousands of these experimental surgeries
on women who needed therapy, animals and gay people. And that's like all my friends. It gets way wilder. And I'll get into all the details of the who, what, when, where, why? But I think the best example of the disgusting way
that lobotomies were used, is the story of Rosemary Kennedy. Oh yeah, you heard me, I said Kennedy. You know, like Kennedy, Kennedy. Like John F the brother of Robert, they both got assassinated,
famously so, very dramatic. You know, those ones. Well, JFK actually had a sister. Like I said, her name
was Rosemary Kennedy. And honestly, she sounds like she was a bunch of fun
when she was younger. She loved fashion, dancing, swimming, doing blow in the bathroom and telling everyone she loved them. Okay, that one is probably not true, but you get what I mean,
she was fun, she was young. She was a woman just finding
herself in her early 20's. We don't judge here, we do not judge. Her family wanted to make sure their reputation wasn't
going to be tarnished. They wanted to maintain
appearances of being the Kennedy's. So they had to do something about it. Rosemary grew up in a life of luxury. Everyone was obviously very smart. And if you're a Kennedy, you're born into fame and high society. So life was pretty easy, but expectations, they were very high. And for Rosemary, she was the black sheep. Okay, she did not do very well in school, she was often acting out and
would continue into adulthood. She was partying, she was more
rebellious, unpredictable. So then her parents think it's best to put her into like
this all girls school. So a couple of them, she
ends up running away from, but then she ends up at a convent school where the nuns expressed concerns that she was having sex with men. Oh yeah, drama. So Rosemary's parents, they're
feeling pretty defeated and quite embarrassed by her behavior. You know, that they started
looking for possible treatments to quote unquote, "fix Rosemary", because she's a wild one, and we can't have that as a Kennedy. Her dad had been told about
this new surgery, lobotomy, which could help eliminate
Rosemary's mood swings and suppress some of her urges. To put it even more simply, it would make Rosemary more agreeable. With this in mind, he decided
to schedule his daughter for a lobotomy in November of 1941. And now let's pause for an ad break. (spooky piano music) If you're carrying a credit
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upstart for partnering with me on today's story. And now let's get back to the podcast. (spooky piano music) Rosemary showed up for her surgery, where they lay her down, they shaped parts of her head and they drilled one
hole above each temple. Once they did so, they took an instrument
resembling a butter knife, and they insert it into the holes. And they're essentially
like cutting the wire that allows her brain to feel feelings. At this point, it hadn't been practiced on dozens of patients
suffering from insanity or even criminal-types of behavior. And it helped those people. One of the doctors
asked Rosemary questions or asked her to sing songs, while the other performed a lobotomy. And then, once Rosemary's
words became jumbled, that's when they knew they had cut enough or they had gone too far. They really wouldn't know
until she woke up, honestly. So hours later, when she woke up, on one hand, the procedure
did exactly what was promised. Rosemary no longer had mood swings, she wasn't disagreeable,
and she was a lot calmer. Great, beautiful, it worked, you know. Except, it really didn't. Because on the other hand, it reduced her mental capacity
to that of a two year old, she was no longer able to walk. She was babbling like a baby,
she was shitting her pants and she was now just completely
dependent on other people. In my personal opinion,
they were embarrassed of her as her fully normal self. So they get this weird ass
surgery by this doctor, who fully botches it and just fucks her up big time. Neato gang, ya did it. Then they shipped her off
and they got rid of her. And this is literally why you
probably haven't heard of her. The successes were publicized, but the failures were hidden away like sweet Rosemary Kennedy. But if a Kennedy does it, then there must be something to it, right? Mental illness has been
around for very long time, and I'm sure-
- I heard you talking. Look at Moses, he talked
to a goddamn burning bush, and nobody even questioned that. It's like, yo Mo, hey Mo,
Mo, you good, bro, you know? - Where did you even come from? - I'm doing the light. - Ow. Okay, I'm in the middle of- - You want me to take it? - Yeah. Yeah.
- Okay. - Okay, so Moses, great example, talking to a burning bush, all right. And people have been trying to find ways to treat patients with whatever
they've been suffering from. There has always been a curiosity of going to the brain itself
to figure out what's wrong. I mean, look at today. Today you can get pills, do
meditation, yoga, breath work, fucking cupping, whatever that is. There are options for you. And it just seems like throughout history, people have searched for one answer to treat mental illnesses. Lobotomy was just 1936 attempt
to address mental health. I mean, they tried, okay. So you see back then in the 1930s, if you had a mental illness, they would just lock you up in an asylum and you'd just sit there
for the rest of your life. So someone had to come up with a solution to help with these overcrowded hospitals. Enter James Watts and Walter Freeman. They had been studying
a new type of surgery that a doctor named Moniz
in Portugal was working on. Ultimately James and Walter would go on to popularize
lobotomy in the United States. But first, let me give you a
little background about Moniz, who kind of got the ball rolling. Around 1935, Moniz, a neurologist, was at a medical conference
and he heard a talk by a doctor who removed the frontal lobes
of two violent chimpanzees. Now, before the lobes were removed, the chimps would attack
each other pretty viciously. But after, the behavior of
the chimps it changed so much that someone else at the conference described it as if they had
joined a "happiness cult". That's what they said. They were super Zen, picking
bugs off of each other's hair, just chilling, chimping out, just chimping it up, big chimping. So Moniz is like, hey, why aren't we doing this on people? By the way, that's like
an absolutely insane jump, but that's what he was thinking. And three months later, he did just that. And Moniz wrote about how
successful his treatment was, even though he rarely kept
any records on the patients. He promoted it as like this
answer to life's unhappiness. Now enter to the scene, Walter Freeman, who was working at a local
mental hospital in Washington, DC and Walter, he came from
a family of overachievers. His dad and grandpa were
super successful doctors, not just a regular white coat. Walter's grandpa was a
full-on performer hunty, okay. It seemed like his dad was
not much of a performer and Walter kind of
resented his dad's apathy toward the showmanship of his grandpa. He really idolized his grandpa, and Walter was eager to
live up to the legacy. And on top of that, he saw
his colleagues and friends making names for themselves and he was eager to do
that for himself too. Social pressures, you get it. While he was working at the hospital, he had this weird feeling
of fear, disgust and shame, because of how poorly
treated the patients were. And he wanted to help
find an easier solution to all of this. Now that's when he came
across what Moniz was doing, and he sees an opportunity
to do two things. One, help people, and two, have the world roll
out the red carpet to him as the healer of all mental illnesses, I have arrived. Now, he knew if he could
perfect Moniz's technique and get everyone to do it, there'd be less suffering, right? And I mean, that's a great thing, but Walter wasn't a surgeon and he couldn't perform
the surgery himself. So he called up his friend,
neurosurgeon James Watts, and he's like, hey, do you like wanna work on this little project with me? You know, we can save
mankind, change the world. Sounds great. So James and Walter, they work together and modified the Moniz technique. They added a dull-flat knife, drilled into the side of
the skull instead of the top and renamed it as what we
know today as the lobotomy. Rebrand. And in September of 1936, they lobotomized their first patient. Now, I regret to inform you
friends, it was a big success. You can imagine it really
boosted Walter's ego. And an egotistical lobotomist
is not a good thing, I can imagine. Now, 63 year old Alice Hammatt was dealing with insomnia, anxiety and overwhelming depression
for most of her entire life. And she went looking for some help. Walter had diagnosed Alice with agitated depression
a while before this. Now she was getting worse and worse. Violent mood swings, she was
randomly laughing or crying and she was unable to sleep, but she's struggled
with massive self doubt. Just normal Tuesday in my book. Normally, a patient at this time would be tossed into a mental hospital and the key would just
be thrown away, you know. But Walter was able to present a choice. She can go to the mental
health or the lobotomy. Now, Walter, he was a great sales man. And he was able to present it as like the one all be all
solution to her struggles. So, of course, to Alice, a one and done surgery or
stay in a hospital forever? Naturally, she's gonna
choose the one and done. Sign me up, doc, I'll take one lobotomy. So Walter and James, they
put her under anesthesia, and just like with Rosemary Kennedy, they have to shave Alice's head. Then they drill two
holes above her temples and they carefully cut nerve fibers connecting to her frontal lobe. Now Walter begins his
neurological examination. Her pupils were responsive, he stroked the soles of her feet and her toes curled in response. She seems fine, great. And then four hours later,
the anesthesia wore off and she woke up and she focused on Walter. And he asked her like,
"How are you feeling?" And she's like, "Oh my God,
I feel so much better, wow." Later that night she was still
able to name her husband. I know groundbreaking. Describe his line of
work, recite her address and correctly identify
objects in the room. (clapping) Way to go, Alice, you go girl. He went to her bedside the
next day and found her alert, sitting up, she's there, great. Now Walter wanted to know what
her emotional state was like and asked her if she
still felt her old fears. And she's like, "Oh my God, no, I do
not, I feel so happy." He's like, "Do you feel happy or sad?" And she's like, "I'm so happy." Over the next few days, he monitored Alice and watched her become
more alert, more active. She was just doing the most. She would read magazines and
talk about what she just read. She had a good appetite, good sleep, and more importantly, very little anxiety. She didn't even care about
the parts of her head Walter had to shave for
James to do the surgery, which was something that she said filled her with intense
anxiety before the procedure. This was the first attempt
to treat mental illness through surgery on the
frontal lobes of the brain in American medical history, and to Walter and James, the result was exactly
what they wanted to see. It wasn't perfect. I mean, there were some slurring
happening in Alice's words as her brain healed, but Alice went on to
live a somewhat normal anxiety-free life. And Alice would become
Walter and James poster child for the simple effectiveness of lobotomy. Soon described by the New York Times as the surgery of the soul. I mean, don't you wanna
live in anxiety-free life, just like Alice? Well, before we figure that
out, let's pause for a break. (spooky piano music) If you love True Crime podcast, or maybe you're enjoying this
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wherever you listen to podcasts, and now let's get back to the show. (spooky piano music) And we're Back. So Alice ended up dying five years later. Anyway, it's at this point, Walter is starting to get like
a taste of rockstar status. They set their goal to
operate on 20 patients by the end of the year, because in order to
commercialize lobotomy, they had to prove its success. They were invited to
perform more operations. So Walter began touring the country. So Walter was channeling his
grandfather's showmanship, and instead of giving some kind of boring medical jargon-filled speech, he turned it into like
this weird spectacle. He wanted to perform lobotomies in front of a huge audience in hopes of receiving a huge applause. He would wear like a wide brimmed hat, his facial hair shaped
into like a sharp goatee. And he would carry around a cane, which many believe like
he didn't even need. Well, okay. He was like the Willy
Wonka of brain surgery- - He was like one of those 1930s carnival barkers, you know. "Are you feeling sad? "You got a case of ants in your pants? "Are you terrified of getting older? "Well, step right up, "we got a one-time fix to
solve all your problems. "What's that, you don't love your husband? "Well, we can fix that too." - You see right here, it
says hosted by Bailey Sarian, it doesn't, there's no
commentary or anything. How about you take your brown
apple and just get out of here and get back to the lights. The lights need assistance. - [Joey] You're doing great. - I don't know why he's here. Meanwhile, James was able to stay focused on the medical implications and the larger impact on the medical industry at the time. He was a straight laced dude, he had like a baby face
with a serious demeanor. And if Walter was the showman
and the face of the procedure, then James was just a dude
who wanted to get to work. When he first met Walter,
Walter was wearing a sombrero, getting ready to lecture
about brain stuff. For me, that's a big red flag. Like he's obviously full of shit, but James liked the flare
and what he had to say. So he decided to venture away from his usual basic doctor MO and risk it all just to be part of whatever Walter was selling. They would invite the press
to report on the procedure, reaching a much larger
audience country wide, which was a really smart
business move to be honest. This would lead to New York Times announcing to the American people this brand new surgical
procedure, the lobotomy, the surgery of the soul. Tell me more, who qualifies for the
surgery of the soul you say? Well, Bailey, I'm so glad you asked. You would qualify if you
struggled from depression, self-doubt, anxiety,
schizophrenia, fear of aging, unrest due to a loveless marriage. Then you, my friend, could get a lobotomy. Doesn't that actually sound kind of good? Can you see why people would be into this? I'm into this. I mean, shit, I don't wanna age, I'm terrified of aging, sure. Well, when looking into
this list a bit further, who do you think is gonna
relate to these symptoms? Quote, unquote "symptoms", because I'm sure men in the 1930s did not suffer from fear of aging. It's women, women is what I'm getting at. Women made up most of his customers, but that's how Walter sold
his surgery to a lot of people as an easy solution to
all of their problems. Over the next few years, they'd go on to collect over 200 patients to perform the lobotomy on in order to help them like
build their case study, which they released as a
book called "Psychosurgery". Then the American Medical
Association published an editorial saying lobotomy was a great option for the American people. You'd have to be brain dead or
a man to not want a lobotomy. All of their dreams were coming true. Everyone knew their
names, but mainly Walter and he was stoked to
finally have the recognition he always wanted. Okay, but hold the scalpel, let's talk about how
things were actually going. Now, they had some pretty big claims, and the numbers, they didn't lie. In the book of "Psychosurgery", which became a best seller. Walter and James went into great detail about their findings. That out of 200 patients, 63% improved, 23% not much happened, and 14% they got worse or freaking died. 14% sounds like a huge risk, right? Well, not to the people, they were focusing on that 63% number. - And for the ladies out there, if you're struggling to
keep up, that's over half. - Where do you keep
getting all this food from? - Crafty. - Good to know. Anyways, moving on. Thank you, Joey, for
your constant commentary that nobody asked for. Walter wasn't satisfied with having only performed 200
lobotomies, he wanted more. And in order to get more, he
needed two things to happen. Make more people believe
they needed a lobotomy and make the procedures
simpler and faster. Though, first qualifying more people. Now Walter believed lobotomy could also be an effective
treatment for headaches, which it wasn't. It was kind of like how
the tobacco industry started with the Marlboro man, because it made adults
buy more cigarettes. But then they were like, hey, let's expand our customer base. What if cartoons started ripping gears or whatever kids call it these days, then bam, kids wanna smoke. And they did. The point here is that Walter
is widening his demographic and targeting a larger audience. The next step would be to
simplify the procedure. Something nobody asked of brain surgery, and Walter, who again, was not a surgeon was astonished by the work
of an Italian colleague who developed an approach to the procedure that needed nothing more than
a tool resembling an ice pick that could be tapped through
the eye socket, into the brain. No holes in the head, no cutting. Now this made the process
so simple that Walter, who did I mention was
not a surgeon, right, began performing lobotomies
all by himself without James or the required sterilization
of a medical room. Now you can see how this
is gonna be problematic. Walter's new method was so easy, it took only seven minutes
to perform, sex joke. And in comparison, the old
method took a bunch of hours. Not only was Walter cutting
corners in the operating room. He once said, "all that germ crap", was slowing him down and thought
being sterile was annoying. I freaking roll, but
he got what he wanted. The surgery was now fast. And in 1946, he began
doing this without James. It started with operating
on a woman who was manic, suicidal and prone to
uncontrollably screaming for seemingly no reason. After the surgery was performed by Walter, all of a sudden she could speak, she could read, write, walk, and she was no longer
prone to violent outbursts. She even became a nurse. Isn't that sweet? I think it's time to
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for working with me and partnering on today's episode. And now let's get back to the story. (spooky piano music) Now, he hasn't even told James yet about this ice pick business. He went ahead and performed
nine more surgeries without James even knowing. So Walter eventually goes
to James and is like, "Hey buddy, I've been
experimenting a little, "I can't wait to show you the
things I've been working on. "You're gonna love it, man." And he goes on to show him the new and improved ice pick procedure. And we don't know exactly
how that conversation went. But what we do know was
that James was pissed. James was almost offended
by this new procedure. It was gross, it was dirty, it was a slap in the face
to modern day medicine. And just like that,
their 13-year friendship was heading down the drain. With James out of the picture, Walter was able to cut the dead weight that was holding him back from
achieving his bigger goal. Lobotomies for everyone, in just seven simple minutes for the new low price
of $199.99, call now. In 1948, Moniz, remember him
from earlier in the story. Well, he won the Nobel Prize in medicine for inventing the lobotomy. This gave the procedure
credibility on a global scale, and now everybody's just dying to get one. It's super chic, it's on trend. Suddenly thousands of
lobotomies were being performed all over the world from Europe to Japan. Now, Walter being the businessman he was, he prepared for this new
onslaught of customers with his new, cheaper
and faster procedure. He performed 228 lobotomies
in just two weeks. His average price was about $200, sometimes $20, sometimes free, depending on where he was at. Between the 1930s and the 1970s, 40 to 50,000 lobotomies
were performed in America, with Walter's customers taking up roughly 10% of that number. Most of the lobotomies done were on disenfranchised, powerless people, older adults, the mentally ill, women. Now, even children. If you Google lobotomy, there's a good chance this
name is going to come up, Howard Dully. Oh, he's the most famous
survivor of the procedure. And he had it done to him
when he was just 12 years old. But plot twist, Howard didn't
find out he got a lobotomy until he was an adult. He had like some kind of sneaky suspicion something happened to him, saying that he felt something
was missing from his soul. Surgery of the soul, huh? Howard got a lobotomy from none other than Mr. Walter Freeman. I can't get over the fact that this guy had a full blown lobotomy and didn't even know it. So you're probably wondering, well, how does a 12 year old
end up on the operating table in the first place? Well, when Howard Dully was four, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which in turn qualified
him for the lobotomy. Howard was one of the lucky ones and eventually went on to
live a somewhat "normal life". I sort of glossed over it when
we talked about it earlier, but homosexual tendencies were considered a symptom
of schizophrenia back then. So there have been people who
say gay people got lobotomies as treatment for being gay, but there isn't any evidence we could find to prove this with something Walter or anybody else actively targeted. But at this time, engaging
in gay sexual relations was considered a crime. So an easy way to stop
committing crimes is just to, I guess, remove that part
of your brain, right? In general, if you weren't
good enough for society, they'd give you a lobotomy. And that went for black
people and women too, who experienced lobotomies at
a higher rate than white men. So, if you weren't a white dude,
you qualify for a lobotomy. Even chimps weren't safe. Walter never explicitly said that he would target gay people, but here's an example of
how he used lobotomies to treat homosexual tendencies. There was this woman named Gretchen. Now Gretchen was married and her husband noticed that
she never wanted to have sex. So naturally he thought she
was cheating on him because, you know, typical, right? Plus he noticed that
she was super paranoid and would go into really
weird graphic description of her sexual fantasies with women. I don't know, I think it
sounds kind of hot to me. Well, one day Gretchen hopped into her car and she drove off into the night leading her right into a telephone pole. Because of her random shift in mood, her near death experience, and the fact that she loved a meat taco, she got her husband's
permission to get a lobotomy. Notice how I said husband's permission? Well, that's how you had to
get shit done around this time. And so in June of 1950, Gretchen met with Walter
and received her treatment. Afterwards, everything
seemed fine, at first. But then she started having
these psychotic episodes where she saw crosses in the sky, she lost all of her artistic interests and even her sense for adventure. Gretchen became dependent
on full-time care, spending the rest of her
life living with her mother. Unlike Rosemary or Howard or Alice, Gretchen's story is likely
the most common story surrounding lobotomy. You were sold this as an easy fix, but the effects were lasting and worse than anybody
could have imagined. It literally destroyed lives. And just like in the previous Dark History stories we've talked about, there's this common
theme of the same groups being marginalized, victimized, criminalized and exploited? And they swear. They always swear, it has
nothing to do with race, gender or sexual orientation. Funny how they haven't found a treatment for being a white man in America. Speaking of Walter Freeman, things started to change for
him and the public perception around lobotomies in the late 1940s. The American Medical Association would come out with the
piece criticizing lobotomy by pointing out the obvious, that it was incredibly dumb
idea to destroy the brain and assume it would make
someone a healthier person. Now we're gonna take a
little pause for an ad break. (spooky piano music) Today's episode is brought
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wickedclothes.com/darkhistory. A big thank you to wicked clothes for partnering with me on today's episode. And now let's get back to the show. (spooky piano music) Lobotomy was on the decline and was becoming a thing of the past. Many people were looking for a safer and less dangerous method to
treat their mental illness. So much so that even Russia banned lobotomy in the '50s, Russia. They have bears as pets out there. I mean, that's what I heard. Anyways, rumors were
spreading in the US saying that Russians were using lobotomy as a way to use mind
control on the US soldiers. These rumors were making people really afraid of this treatment, because it was now being
linked to mind control. Now we have no direct proof of this, but at the time it was
believed to be true. It wasn't looking good for Walter. And then in the 1950s, a huge drug revolution
in medicine came to be. Introduced to the public was an easier solution for
mental health treatment. Pills for everybody. If you wanna treat depression,
there's a pill for that, if you wanna treat schizophrenia,
there's a pill for that. You wanna take some birth
control, wink, wink, there's a pill for that. Walter, he's getting nervous because he knows the average American will gladly take a pill over getting an ice pick
shoved into their brain. But he was in denial and he wanted to keep
the lobotomy show going. He still continued to tour
around the United States, believing that lobotomy was still a good and honest treatment. He was holding onto that dream
of being a successful doctor that pioneered mental health treatment. But just let it go, Walter, the people have moved on, God damn. You know, when you see a guy who has like four hairs
on the top of his head, he still like puts gel in it, and you're thinking to yourself like, dang, David, just let it go, shave your head, oh my God. That was Walter. He just wouldn't let it go. And he was holding onto the past and who he used to be four hairs and all. But he made the decision
to keep trucking on and performing lobotomies where he could. Yeah, you heard me, right,
Walter is still going for it. The biggest sign that he and lobotomy had fallen
far and fast was in 1961. Walter was giving a speech
about the benefits of lobotomy and people were heckling
him from off stage. You know, they're calling him a monster, wondering why he's even still performing lobotomies in the first place. So Walter was getting all
butt hurt over the heckling and he marches off stage and he grabs a box filled
with over 500 Christmas cards that his former patients had sent him. And then he takes it and he
dumps it out onto the stage. And he yells at the hecklers, "How many Christmas cards do
you get from your patients?" As if this proved some
point to the audience? The interesting part of that story is that he showed his
true colors right there. It goes back to his family and his peers. He enjoyed being the star of the show and he needed constant validation that he was doing a good job. Even when it was obvious, the work he was doing was damaging, he was in complete denial about the fact that this was a completely
self-serving venture. The final nail in Walter's coffin, 1967. Walter's final lobotomy patient died as a result of the surgery, leaving Walter to throw in
the towel for good this time and giving up his career. By this time, Walter himself had performed about 3,500 lobotomies. Who freaking knows how
many lives and families were truly affected by both of their work. And at this point, Walter
was, he was just a sad clown. He lost everything. He lost his job, he lost his fandom, he lost his best friend. And the cherry on top of this
new low, Walter got cancer. Yeah, sorry bud, talk about a bad day. You know what would make
Walter feel so much better? Checking in on his old patients
and seeing what successful, happy lives they were now living, all thanks to Walter's magic. So cue the apology tour. Well maybe we should call
it the validation tour, because, once again, our
man thrives on validation. So he hops in his car, he
drives around the country and visits a bunch of his success stories. He needs to feel better
and everyone hates lobotomy except for the people it worked for. They then tell them how
much better they are. He isn't doing well, he's dying
of cancer, everything sucks. So he needs confirmation
this all wasn't for nothing. Around this time, he released
his final lobotomy report. Out of 707 schizophrenics, around 73% were still hospitalized or at home or dependent on others. But he was determined to
find that healthy 27%, because he got their Christmas cards. Walter would spend his last days on earth, solely dying of cancer and
driving around the country, visiting his former patients. Maybe it was fame, maybe it was his ego, but Walter refuse to admit lobotomy wasn't a good thing until
his dying day in 1972. His legacy or just the legacy of lobotomy, it's super complicated. There were variations of the
procedure better and safer ones still being performed up
until at least the '90s, but lobotomies, as it was
known in Walter Freeman's era, isn't really used anymore. And I mean, technically any brain surgery that is intended to
treat behavioral problems could be considered a form of lobotomy, but it's not exactly the same thing. So the science has evolved and luckily you can just pop a pill now, instead of getting your
skull cracked open. But I mean, come on,
same shit different day. Lobotomy mostly lives on now as something in movies and TV
shows portrayed exclusively as a means of controlling somebody. I'm sure there's some
examples you can think of and they're all likely works of fiction. But what isn't fiction are
the lives that were shattered and permanently altered by
James Walter and their ice pick. Well, wasn't this fun? What did we learn here friends
besides Joey annoying us? Well, I hope you learn something
about how easy it can be to ruin your life in America. Walter would ruin thousands
of people's brains, sometimes for the low,
low price of just $20. I mean, I can ruin your life for way less if you're looking for
a cheaper alternative. And I think this story isn't just about doctors
who are completely unhinged, it's more about the lengths
we as a society will go just to please our peers to fit in, "just be normal", quote unquote, or whatever the hell that means. Not only that, but
Walter got away with it. Nobody ever checked him on it or even made him wash his hands, his greasy ass mitts. Anyways, always read the fine print. You should obviously
trust your doctors, right? We should always be careful
with whether the doctors should even be doing whatever he's doing. Walter wasn't even a freaking surgeon and he was performing surgery. Like, would you trust your
dentist with your knee surgery? Or would you trust like
Dr. Dre with brain surgery? I don't know, those
beats are pretty catchy. I wanna hear your thoughts. Do you know more about this? Let's continue the conversation
over on social media using the hashtag #darkhistory. Join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these
episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs, and also catch Murder Mystery Make-up which drops every Monday. I hope you have a
wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices, and I'll be talking to you guys later. Bye. Dark History is an AudioBoom Original. This podcast is executive
produced by Bailey Sarian, Chelsea Durgin from Slash Management and Avi Gandhi from Wheelhouse DNA. Producer Lexi Kiven, Derrial
Christon and Spencer Strasmore. Research provided by, Jed Bookout. Writers, Jed Bookout, Michael Oberst, Joey Scavuzzo and me, Bailey Sarian. And I'm your host, princess
of the dark, Bailey Syrian. A special thank you to today's
historical consultants, Jack El-Hai, author of "The Lobotomist" and Professor Janell Johnson.
