Monday, May 28, 2007

Flashback - WWII and lobotomies

The book Flashback by Penny Coleman deals with PTSD and suicide. Even though the focus is on Vietnam, there is a small section about WWII. I am quoting for educational purposes. "Fully 60 percent of the postwar VA patients were psychiatric. Limited funds and limited space opened the door for one of medical history's most obscene experiments: the ice pick lobotomy" (p. 54). The vast majority of lobotomies in the 40s and 50s were "hysterical women" with the main exception being traumatized veterans.