Editing Walter Freeman

{{infobox person
|name                    = Walter Jackson Freeman II 
|image                   = Dr-walter-freeman-lobotomist.jpg
|box_width               = 
|image_width             = 
|caption                 = 
|birth_date              = November 14, 1895
|birth_place             = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
|death_date              = May 31, 1972 (aged 76)
|death_place             = 
|profession              = physician]], psychiatrist 
|specialism              = psychosurgery, neurology 
|research_field          =   
|known_for               = Popularizing the [[lobotomy]]<br> Invention of the "ice pick" lobotomy  
|years_active            = 
|education               = Yale University]]<br>University of Pennsylvania Medical School
|work_institutions       = 
|prizes                  = 
|relations               =
}}
'''Dr. Walter Jackson Freeman II''' (November 14, 1895 &ndash; May 31, 1972) was an American physician. He is mainly remembered as a prolific lobotomist<ref>[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lobotomist/program/ American Experience | The Lobotomist | PBS</ref> and an advocate of psychosurgery.

Freeman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania into an affluent and distinguished family. His father was a successful doctor and his grandfather, William Williams Keen, was President of the American Medical Association. He graduated from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.  He was president of the American Association of Neuropathologists 1944-1945, president of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology 1946-1947, and a member of the American Psychiatric Association.

==Career==
Freeman performed nearly 3500 lobotomies in 23 states, mostly based on scanty and flimsy evidence for its scientific basis<ref>[http://student.bmj.com/issues/06/01/education/12.php] S Abimbola, The white cut: Egas Moniz, lobotomy, and the Nobel prize, British Medical Journal</ref><ref name=autogenerated1> [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014080 My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey]</ref>, but more significantly he popularized the lobotomy.  A neurologist without surgical training, he initially worked with several surgeons, including James W. Watts. In 1936, he and Watts became the first American doctors to perform prefrontal lobotomy (by craniotomy in an operating room). 

Seeking a faster and less invasive way to perform the procedure, Freeman adopted Amarro Fiamberti's transorbital lobotomy and began to perfect it, initially by using ice picks hammered into each frontal lobe through the back of each eye socket ("ice pick lobotomy"). Freeman was able to perform these very quickly, outside of an operating room, and without a surgeon.  For his first transorbital lobotomies, Freeman used an actual icepick from his kitchen. Later, he utilized an instrument created specifically for the operation called a leucotome. In 1948 Freeman developed a new technique which involved wrenching the leucotome in an upstroke after the initial insertion. This procedure placed great strain on the instrument and in one case resulted in the leucotome breaking off in the patient's skull. As a result, Freeman designed a new, stronger instrument, the orbitoclast.  

Freeman embarked on a national campaign in his van which he called his "lobotomobile" to demonstrate the procedure to doctors working at state-run institutions; Freeman would show off by icepicking both of a patient's eyesockets at one time - one with each hand.<ref name=autogenerated1 /> According to some, institutional care was hampered by lack of effective treatments and extreme overcrowding, and Freeman saw the transorbital lobotomy as an expedient tool to get large populations out of treatment and back into private life.

The “ice pick lobotomy” was, according to 
Ole Enersen, performed by Freeman “with a recklessness bordering on lunacy, touring the country like a travelling evangelist. In most cases,” Enersen continued, “this procedure was nothing more than a gross and unwarranted mutilation carried out by a self righteous zealot.”<ref>[http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/454.html Enersen OD. Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz.]</ref>

Freeman's most notorious operation was on the ill-fated Rosemary Kennedy, who was permanently incapacitated by a lobotomy at age 23.  Another of his patients, Howard Dully, has now written a book called ''My Lobotomy'' about his experiences with Freeman and his long recovery after the surgery he underwent at 12 years old.<ref>"My Lobotomy" by Dully, Howard, Ebury Press</ref>

With the advent of antipsychotic drugs, notably Thorazine, in the mid-1950s, lobotomy fell out of favor as a treatment, and Freeman saw his reputation crumble quickly. His license to practice medicine was revoked when a patient he was lobotomizing died. He continued to drive cross country in his "lobotomobile" to visit his former patients until his death from cancer in 1972.

==Video==
*The following is a PBS American Experience video on Walter Freeman entitled "The Lobotomist."

<videoflash>EYpaKNMJlh4</videoflash>

==References==
<references/>

===Other sources===
*El-Hai, Jack (2005), ''The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness''; Wiley.

==External links==
*[http://thelobotomist.com The Lobotomist, authoritative biography of Freeman by Jack El-Hai]
*[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lobotomist/more/index.html 'The Lobotomist'], PBS, American Experience series, program aired 2008-01-21
*[http://www.psychosurgery.org Psychosurgery.org]
*[http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/353/2/119 New England Journal of Medicine article]
*[http://www.mcmanweb.com/article-122.htm Article referencing Jack El-Hai's initial Washington Post feature on Freeman]
*[http://www.23nlpeople.com/schizophrenia/lobotomy.html A Brief History of Lobotomy]
*[http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/my_lobotomy/ 'My Lobotomy' documentary program from SoundPortraits.org. "]

[[Category:Historical People]]
[[Category:Articles With Videos]]