Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainFreeman, equal parts physician and showman, became a barnstorming crusader for the procedure. Before his death in 1972, he performed transorbital lobotomies on some 2,500 patients in 23 states.
One of Freeman's youngest patients is today a 56-year-old bus driver living in California. Over the past two years, Howard Dully has embarked on a quest to discover the story behind the procedure he received as a 12-year-old boy.
*** Howard Dully's mother died of cancer when he was 5. His father remarried and, Dully says, "My stepmother hated me. I never understood why, but it was clear she'd do anything to get rid of me."A search of Dully's records among Freeman's files archived at George Washington University turned up clues about why Freeman lobotomized him.
According to Freeman's notes, Lou Dully said she feared her stepson, whom she described as defiant and savage looking. "He doesn't react either to love or to punishment," the notes say of Howard Dully. "He objects to going to bed but then sleeps well. He does a good deal of daydreaming and when asked about it he says 'I don't know.' He turns the room's lights on when there is broad sunlight outside."
On Nov. 30, 1960, Freeman wrote: "Mrs. Dully came in for a talk about Howard. Things have gotten much worse and she can barely endure it. I explained to Mrs. Dully that the family should consider the possibility of changing Howard's personality by means of transorbital lobotomy. Mrs. Dully said it was up to her husband, that I would have to talk with him and make it stick."
Then on Dec. 3, 1960: "Mr. and Mrs. Dully have apparently decided to have Howard operated on. I suggested [they] not tell Howard anything about it."
*** 'My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey
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It's probably not rational, but one of my greatest fears is that the government will start mandating lobotomies, electroshock or drug therapy for people like myself. The disabled, the nonconformists. Really, anyone who doesn't follow the party line.
Eh, I told you it wasn't rational. I've noticed a lot of lefties who are almost paralyzed by that fear or driven to hysterics. It's certainly not that way with me, and not anything I think about too often. Still, at the back of my mind, that fear is there.
It's not like the government has never mandated lobotomies, ECT, and drug therapies before, a long with other medical treatments, such as sterilization. Just because they aren't doing it to many people NOW doesn't mean they'll never do it again.
