On this episode of Our American Stories in the mid- th century families desperate for answers turned to a radical procedure known as the lobotomy It was sold as a cure for everything from depression to schizophrenia but its brutal methods left thousands of patients permanently damaged At the center was Dr Walter Freeman a man whose name became synonymous with transorbital lobotomy and the dark side of psychosurgery Yet from these failures came progress The shortcomings of lobotomy forced doctors and scientists to pursue safer more effective ways to treat mental illness ultimately laying the groundwork for modern brain [... more]

The story of the frontal lobotomy, a surgery that was once widely used to treat psychiatric illness, but had a horrific impact on many patients, including Rosemary Kennedy. Despite its flaws, the procedure led to the development of new techniques in neurosurgery and modern brain surgery. [... more]