A lobotomy is a type of brain surgery that was developed in the 1930s as a treatment for mental health conditions such as schizophrenia. It involves severing the connection between the frontal lobe and different parts of the brain. The frontal lobe is involved in many brain processes, including language, voluntary motion, and many cognitive abilities. The different types of lobotomy include:

• Frontal lobotomy: A surgeon drilled a hole into each side of the skull and cut through brain tissue with an instrument resembling an ice pick called a leucotome.

• Transorbital lobotomy: A surgeon inserted a leucotome through the eye socket and drove it through a thin layer of bone with a mallet to access the brain.

Lobotomies were performed to treat patients suffering from mental disorders for many years, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s when treatments for psychiatric disorders were few. By todays standards, these surgeries were primitive and dangerous. However, a large study in the U.S. found that 44% of patients were released from hospitals after the surgery. Similar good results were reported by studies in Canada (45%) and England and Wales (46%) .

The procedure was pioneered by the Portuguese scientist Egas Moniz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949. Tens of thousands of lobotomies were carried out in some countries to treat schizophrenia, affective disturbance, and obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) . However, lobotomy has always been controversial, and for a period of the medical mainstream, it was even feted and regarded as a legitimate last-resort remedy for categories of patients who were otherwise regarded as hopeless. Today, lobotomy has become a disparaged procedure, a byword for medical barbarism and an exemplary instance of the medical trampling of patients rights.

Lobotomies are no longer performed and have largely been replaced by medications.