Lobotomy (prefrontal leucotomy)
Lobotomía (leucotomía prefrontal)
- Date
- 1935 · confidence high
- Place
- Lisbon, Portugal
- Credited to
- António Egas Moniz (design) and Pedro Almeida Lima (surgeon)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Moniz devised and Almeida Lima performed the first leucotomy, a surgery that severed prefrontal-lobe connections to treat severe psychiatric disorders; it spread to tens of thousands of patients before being abandoned due to its devastating after-effects.
Now considered one of the greatest ethical controversies of 20th-century medicine; the Soviet Union banned it as early as 1950.
What it led to
- The 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine, now widely questioned
- Later replacement by antipsychotic drugs and its ban in several countries