The US is the only industrialized country without universal national healthcare. The implication is that it is foolish for the US to resist the consensus of modern progressive policymakers and mainstream medical practitioners.
We're hearing the same argument now that President Trump has pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords. We are told that a consensus of world climate scientists knows the truth about climate change, a truth the rest of us mere mortals can't comprehend. Those who disagree with this consensus of scientists are scorned as truth "deniers."
In the 1940's and 1950's Americans heard much the same thing. A new medical procedure was being touted as a miracle cure for mental illness. It soon earned the praise of mainstream medical scientists. Western countries eagerly adopted the practice:
The procedure, controversial from its inception, was a mainstream procedure in some Western countries for more than two decades (prescribed for psychiatric and occasionally other conditions) despite general recognition of frequent and serious side effects. While some patients experienced symptomatic improvement with the operation, this was achieved at the cost of creating other impairments, and this balance between benefits and risks contributed to the controversial nature of the procedure.
The originator of the procedure, Antonio Egas Moniz, received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1949.
The procedure began to be...
...touted by some as a miracle cure for mental illness, and its use became widespread; during its heyday in the 1940s and ’50s, the [procedure]...was performed on some 40,000 patients in the United States, and on around 10,000 in Western Europe. The procedure became popular because there was no alternative, and because it was seen to alleviate several social crises: overcrowding in psychiatric institutions, and the increasing cost of caring for mentally ill patients.
The American clinical neurologist Walter Freeman championed the procedure and was largely responsible for bringing it to the United States. However, the procedure required sterile operating rooms, anesthesia and skilled surgeons. As a result, many patients in institutions across the country were denied the benefits of the procedure because their institutions lacked these resources.
Consequently, in 1945 Freeman pioneered a new technique that eliminated these obstacles and made the procedure available to virtually everyone.
Freeman’s new technique could be performed in about 10 minutes. Because it did not require anesthesia, it could be performed outside of the clinical setting, and...patients did not need hospital internment afterwards. Thus, Freeman often performed [the procedure]...in his Washington D.C. office...on anyone who was referred to him. During his career, he would perform almost 3,500 operations.
Freeman's procedure is as follows:
With the patient rendered unconscious by electroshock, an instrument was inserted above the eyeball through the orbit using a hammer. Once inside the brain, the instrument was moved back and forth; this was then repeated on the other side. (The ice-pick lobotomy, named as such because the instrument used resembled the tool with which ice is broken, is therefore also known as the transorbital lobotomy...)
Witnessing an ice-pick lobotomy is not for the squeamish. According to one report "during one filmed screening at a Bristol high school 5 students fainted and had to be dragged out."
If you have a strong stomach, you can watch Freeman performing his procedure at: https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f0_1404078269
CAUTION: CONTENT IS GRAPHIC AND MAY BE DISTURBING
Freeman’s
surgeries were so brutal to behold that during one filmed screening at a
Bristol high school 5 students fainted and had to be dragged out1…care
to see for yourself? - See more at:
http://www.madscientistblog.ca/walter-freeman-ice-pick-lobotomist/#sthash.nXMY3WZW.dpuf
Freeman’s
surgeries were so brutal to behold that during one filmed screening at a
Bristol high school 5 students fainted and had to be dragged out1…care
to see for yourself? - See more at:
http://www.madscientistblog.ca/walter-freeman-ice-pick-lobotomist/#sthash.nXMY3WZW.dpuf
No comments:
Post a Comment