00:00Did you know a doctor once performed lobotomies out of hotel rooms, driving from state to state in a van
00:05he called the lobotomobile?
00:06His name was Walter Freeman. His tool was a modified ice pick.
00:10He would hammer it through the eye socket, sweep it back and forth, and be done in minutes.
00:15He did this over 3,400 times. He performed 10 in a single day.
00:20Physicians watched and applauded. He appeared on television.
00:24Medical journals celebrated him as a pioneer.
00:26Rose Kennedy was one of his patients. She was 23 years old.
00:30She came out unable to walk or speak properly for the rest of her life.
00:34Nobody stopped him.
00:36The medical establishment only pulled his privileges after his third patient died on the operating table.
00:41By then, the damage was done.
00:43When it was over, Freeman spent his final years driving around the country visiting former patients.
00:49He kept a scrapbook.
00:50This was not a rogue madman hiding in the shadows.
00:53This was American medicine cheering him on.
Comments