Lobotomized aged 12.
Howard Dully just had horrible parents.
Because a lobotomy is a terrible thing, but someone has to suggest one, first, and his parents had to consent to it. Dully’s mother died of cancer when he was four, his father remarried and his stepmother considered him unruly and awful, so she sent him to numerous psychiatrists to get him diagnosed with a mental disorder — all refused and said Howard was a normal boy, just poorly parented…
Howard Dully's lobotomy, 1960
Finally, the boy was taken to a famous neurologist named Walter Freeman, who specialized in lobotomies. He wrote down the following observation:
“He doesn't react either to love or to punishment... He objects to going to bed but then sleeps well. He does a good deal of daydreaming and when asked about it he says 'I don't know.'”
Dr. Freeman was essentially describing any perfectly normal 12-year-old lad whose family doesn’t know what to do with him and who, due to their treatment of him, doesn’t know what to do with himself, either… but Freeman didn’t see it that way — he finally gave Dully’s stepmother the answer what she wanted, diagnosed Dully with “childhood schizophrenia” and lobotomized him. Freeman said the boy “suffered from schizophrenia since the age of four”. Coincidentally that was when his mother died and his father remarried his God-awful stepmother…
Howard Dully in later life
In later life, Howard Dully drifted in and out of institutions, removed from home, alienated from family and peers. He took to alcoholism. By his forties, he decided to get sober, get a college degree in computer science and eventually got a stable job. In 2007, he published a successful memoir called “My Lobotomy”, which went on to be a bestseller. The boy who no one expected to amount to anything, unwanted and mistreated, lived long enough to watch his own sons and his oldest grandson graduate high school and become a celebrated author.
Howard Dully died in 2025 at age 76. In the final chapter of his book, he argues that while lobotomies are now a thing of the past, there is today a great tendency to overmedicate children diagnosed at early ages with various mental disorders like ADHD, depression, bipolar, and that they’re essentially “medically lobotimized” without a second opinion. Compassionate and thoughtful to the end, he overcame his cruel fate and died a respectful citizen, asking tough questions and shining a light on things we all-too easily shrug off as a society.
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JB ADDS:-
My Step Mother - back in the 1960's had a lobotomy after her Mother died and she had difficulty 'moving beyond her grief' and was eventually hospitalized and after a while, lobotomozed, and she admitted that for the longest time she could not even remember HAVING a Mother as ALL her memories of childhood and all relations with her Mother - - - GONE - - - She said it worked in getting her over her terrible grief and while that was good, she had lost all her childhood memories and was never the most exciting woman, always stating she was shy and never knew what to say and assumed it was because of the lobolomy as she had been very dfferent beforehand.
A lobotomy (or leucotomy) is a discredited neurosurgical procedure that severs nerve pathways in the brain's prefrontal cortex to treat severe psychiatric or neurological conditions.
History and Origins
Invention: The procedure was conceived in 1935 by Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz, who later won the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work.
Transorbital Method: American neurologist Walter Freeman popularized and streamlined the operation in the 1940s by introducing the "transorbital" or ice-pick method, driving a surgical pick through the eye sockets to cut frontal lobe connections.
Peak and Decline:
Widely performed from the 1930s through the 1950s (with tens of thousands of procedures in the United States and Europe), the practice was largely abandoned by the late 1950s due to severe complications, high ethical criticisms, and the introduction of modern psychiatric medications like chlorpromazine.
Effects and Risks
Intended Goals: Used to calm patients experiencing severe agitation, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive behavior, or violent outbursts.
Side Effects: Frequently resulted in apathy, emotional blunting, loss of initiative, personality changes, cognitive impairment, seizures, and incontinence.
Mortality: Carried a significant risk, with an estimated mortality rate around 5% or higher depending on the technique
At the peak of his career, Walter J. Freeman II was a celebrated physician and scientist. He served as the first chairman of the Department of Neurology at George Washington University and was a tireless advocate of surgical treatment for mental illness.
His eccentric appearance, engaging personality during interviews, and theatrical demonstrations of his surgical techniques gained him substantial popularity with local and national media, and he performed more than 3000 prefrontal and transorbital lobotomies between 1930 and 1960. However, poor patient outcomes, unfavorable portrayals of the lobotomy in literature and film, and increased regulatory scrutiny contributed to the lobotomy's decline in popularity. The development of antipsychotic medications eventually relegated the lobotomy to rare circumstances, and Freeman's reputation deteriorated. Today, despite significant advancements in technique, oversight, and ethical scrutiny, neurosurgical treatment of mental illness still carries a degree of social stigma. This review presents a historical account of Walter Freeman's life and career, and the popularization of the lobotomy in the US.
Additionally, the authors pay special attention to the influence of popular literature and film on the public's perception of psychosurgery. Aided by an understanding of this pivotal period in medical history, neurosurgeons are poised to confront the ethical and sociological questions facing psychosurgery as it continues to evolve.
Many times in the past great men of science have been revered and even worshipped as heroes - then after a few decades, what they have facilitated as healthy turns out to have been cruel beyond words, as in this case. This man butchered peoples brains and was respected and revered when he should have been jailed for medical murder.
he hammerd a screw driver through your eye socket and into your brain and then just ' giggled it about a bit' and GUESSED THE OUTCOME - and THIS WAS CONSIDERED SCIENCE AND APPROVED MEDICINE ?
HOW BARBARIC HAVE WE BEEN AND HOW ABUSIVE HAVE SOME ' EXPERTS ' PROVEN TO BE ABSOLUTE FAKE QUACKS.
You make, and take, from the news that which you wish to see and hear. You observe what you want and comment of things that affect you personally. If you don't like something, do not read it and move on but do not shy away from what IS going on in the world of which - you are a part. World news is so easy to find these days and differing opinions not hard to find. Having an opinion is vital and being a ' don't care' person helps no one. So open your mind - open your heart - open your awareness and ALWAYS be open to new ideas and always keep a sense of humour.
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