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Previous Volume 353:119-121 July 14, 2005 Number 2 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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Desperate times call for desperate measures. So thought Walter J. Freeman, a neurologist who became the United States's staunchest advocate of the lobotomy between the 1930s and the 1970s. A new book, The Lobotomist, by journalist Jack El-Hai,¹ chronicles Freeman's advocacy of a procedure that was viewed by many, and continues to be viewed, as barbaric. In exploring the ways in which lobotomy became part of common medical practice, El-Hai raises questions not only about how we should judge the procedure in retrospect, but also about what lobotomy teaches us about last-ditch medical interventions.

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Dr. Lerner is an associate professor of medicine and public health at the Columbia University Medical Center, New York.

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Yudofsky, S. C. (2008). Changing Tides in Neurosurgical Interventions for Treatment-Resistant Depression. Am. J. Psychiatry 165: 671-674 [Full Text]  
• Geller, J. L. (2005). The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness * The Pest Maiden: A Story of Lobotomy. Psychiatr. Serv. 56: 1318-1319 [Full Text]