After World War II , many veterans sustain post - traumatic emphasis and other mental unwellness . Now , long - bury documents have amount to light that divulge how nearly 2,000 of these soldier who were given leukotomy in VA hospitals . They were sent home to their families with this “ charge ” pamphlet .
exposure of doctors examine a lobotomy patient via The George Washington University .
Today the Wall Street Journalpublished a sinewy fact-finding article by Michael Phillipsabout those lose veterans . After unveil evidence in a oldtimer archive of the now - disbelieve lobotomy treatment , Phillips was capable to chance one humans , Roman Tritz who had survived it and lived a relatively independent life — though he continue to suffer the same paranoid psychotic belief that made physician perform the lobotomy in the first office . His narrative is tragical , and reminds us thatone generation ’s cutting - sharpness psychiatric treatmentis the next generation ’s revulsion story .
https://gizmodo.com/the-strange-sad-history-of-the-lobotomy-5787430
Phillips found that many doctors at the time questioned the treatment — including the one who performed surgery on Tritz — but that they believed there was no option for violent and deep disturbed patients . Many patients go bad from the cognitive operation ( one VA hospital had a 15 % fatality rate ) , and others could never care for themselves again and were for good institutionalized . Still , some were able-bodied to summarize mostly normal life — and others , like Tritz , return home but were never themselves again .
Despite the blow , VA hospitals in the 1940s and 50s tried to put a glad face on the subprogram , promise that veterans could rejoin home . But when these patient did go back home , the hospital send this leaflet to their families . It reveals clearly that the VA hospitals knew these lobotomized patients might never behave “ normally , ” though they believed the post - lobotomy behaviour was honest than it was before the operation .
Read more of the article , and see more documents , at the Wall Street Journal .
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