The Insane Lobotomy Craze Of The 1950s
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The orbital lobotomy was a surgery that gained popularity in the late 1940s as a way of treating the most dangerous mentally ill patients in asylums across the country, in fact it won a Nobel Prize for physiology in 1949. But within less than a decade, it was a scorned procedure that was banned in most places. How did it come about? Why was it banned? And how do we make sense of the thousands of lives that were ruined because of it?
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 – Intro
1:38 – Lobotomies In Detail
7:37 – The Phineas Gage Story
9:55 – The Second International Congress of Neurology
16:24 – Finding Lobotomy Alternatives
19:22 – Sponsor – Nebula
@russiandrago821
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
The thumbnail makes me incredibly sad. A woman who despite her psychological issues had a piece of her being, a piece of her sense of self permanently removed.
@kristinazubkova6560
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
You're so cute!!!
@SamanthaRod
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
That Moniz guy from Portugal looks evil
@dermotcanniffe9941
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
3:09 – not everyone understands house music
@dynamicphotography_
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
What's absolutely crazy is that (historically) in some time from now, content creators are going to be making videos like this one talking about what we've been currently doing with "Gender Mutilation".
They're going to be like "Yeah some young kid wanted to be some cartoon character, and then a dinosaur, and then change thier gender all willy nilly.
So they just knifed them up.
And in a lot of cases the parents didn't even know about it.
These individuals were messed up for life".
Truth is stranger than fiction.
@nickchoy7676
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
"Irritable and difficult to get along with." Um… yeah, if I had a 3' steel rod driven through my skull, I think I'd be irritable and difficult to get along with too.
@stabbycat748
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
…it’s really bad that my immediate thought was that at least the first lobotomy was in 1946, because WWII ended in 1945. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if fascists had gotten their hands on that procedure.
…
Actually, knowing the state of America right now, I pray lobotomies stay in the past.
@CaleSchmeidler
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
5:15 missed a perfect opportunity to say "chilled them out". Please fix.
@Hutch2Much
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
ok i will say some of these treatments you talked about are horrible but also supremely funny in hindsight. what do you mean they were like "alright get in the chair, now SPIN!"
@Anji_Lee23
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
This wasn't a random click I searched for these videos.😅 lol
@lisaalexander1824
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Id rather have a bottle in front of me
@DarkWorlds
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
I need one of these
@ryanackley3109
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Mental health treatment has come a long away. But there seems to be a growing gap between believing mental health is real by people and or how to treat it. The former seems to be the case. My opinion on it.
@ramahadranhennessy9300
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Reminds me of the same craze in the 2020s. We just do it with phones now.
@maythesciencebewithyou
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
"rumors she was sexually promiscuous and just in general behaving in ways that were embarrassing for one of the most powerful political families"
So she was like her older brother JFK
@Buddy.Devine
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Also as somone who lives with sevral mental illnesses" trendy" mentall illnesses can be a misconception alot more people nowdays have less stigma and more accurte information areound it then ever before i think this perception is amplifed by young people expressing themselves on social media and it overampfies how many people truly have these disorders the trendy label is often just used to dismiss self digonsed or younger people struggling with mental illnesses who desrve empathy and sopport not sure if yall knew but thats where the trendy myth comes from
Yeah it all really can be traced back to social media makes everyone think ecrything is a trend even when its just people takmubg about thinhs their not used to hesring about or persenting symtomes in ways that clashes with stereotypes
@Buddy.Devine
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Whenever I dream of time traveling now I can just cure my nistgolia with ….I would be limbotmized its best to just stay in 2025
@brothazoot
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Thank you for calling out the whole "trendy illnesses" thing. I've been saying this for a few years now that it seems a little out of control that everybody thinks that they have something.
@mentalclutter1
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
If I had a band, I’d call it Lobotomy Band, and we would drive to the gigs in a van, and I’d totally do an awesome metal paint job on it, with a sign that said Lobotomy Van! 🤘🎧🎸🥁🚐
@tim4s
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
I Had a Lobotomy 30 Years Ago and Im Very fineeeeiiiionnnnzinnnnnnnnnn….
@graybird2054
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Why no one talks about fetal alcohol spectrum disorder? It causes constant fatigue and being basically unable to work while looking fine on the outside and not qualifying for disability because you are perceived as a slacker. Not much different than a lobotomy.
@rketek
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Apparently only 10-20% were performed on men, most were done on women. Surprise.
@miranor6941
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
May I just say, I love this shirt.
@helenr4300
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Before the overcrowding, underfunding, and dumping people who were just inconvenient – the origin of the big Asylums in Victorian Britain came out of a positive vision. They were designed to be in the country, with layouts to maximise light and air to all wards. They took people out of the workhouses, and away from Bedlam's chains and pay per view provision. Asylums were to be the end of being chained up so you can't hurt self or others – the padded cell and the straight jacket being seen as progress in this regard. Today we still use chemicals as straight jackets – keeping people safe by sedation – the aim is the same, to stop self harm.
However – staff were under more and more pressure; not paid enough and as psych nursing still is to day – a difficult job dealing with some very unwell patients. My Gt Grandfather worked in one before and after WW1 – from the overcrowded times to the postwar shell shock and trials of talking therapies. That is what prompted my research into the history.
Within only a few years the grand refuge vision was over run by people being dumped there by families, for being different; non compliant to their place in society – especially women. There were too many people and no-one wanted to work there by late 1800s. It allowed space for cruel and vindictive Assistants; and although the more well might be thought able to be released the vision of a self sufficient community (many had their own farms, workshops, laundries etc) and the idea of occupational therapy worked against this as the more able and stable were needed to keep the place running.
Then they were left to decay – buildings and people – until when they were fazed out in later 1900s the image was of vast abandoned buildings with a few active wards with peeling paint and leaks as the last residents waited for discharge (into 'Care in the community' which was also underfunded and failed) or a move for the most unwell into smaller modern psych wards often on the site of the regular general hospital. Now if someone is unwell enough to need inpatient care they face waits from shortage of beds. In rejecting the lifelong horrors of the failed vision, society has undersupplied for the reality that even with medication and therapy there are those that need a hospital stay during a bad episode. At least that is our situation in UK
@asddsa-dy4ne
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
3:20 I actually thought that about my brother, who got diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. But I learned that proper treatment alongside challenging him on the points he's making and discussing them in an appropriate setting got him pretty far. He's taking care of our mother and grandmother and he's pretty much 99% of what i'd want as a brother in bood.
@LadyDawnRai
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Rosemary Kennedy was the prettiest Kennedy girl and what was done to her was a travesty. She outlived most of her siblings though. I guarantee I would be in an intuition for hysteria with my personality.
@MikeBaxterABC
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
If mental health professionals worked TOGETHER, instead of of yelling "MY WAY IS BEST" to everyone who will listen???
Maybe wed have a more modern and complete approach ??
@MikeBaxterABC
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
16:04 Just saying .. and NOT joking, I assumed this photo was of a patient POST lobotomy Surgery … one the failed ones. not joking the guy looks INSANE!!!!
@MikeBaxterABC
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
In the time of mental institutions, there were very few school shootings, s some advantage!
@TDC7594
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Assuming mankind exists in the 22nd Century, they'll surely look no kinder upon our barbaric and ignorant times. "Back then they convinced and coerced a majority of citizens into trusting a rushed-through medical intervention, championed by proponents of depopulation, for a disease with a 99% survival rate, and for which members of Congress were legally exempt from mandates. What morons!"
@krakx2052
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
I was crazy once, they put me in a room
@Nikashark_X3
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
The Lobotomobile 🤣 15:00
@impala8614
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Lobotomies for the most part we’re strictly about erasing history. Silencing people who remembered the old world . This is just a bunch of hogwash from Google.
@electguitarz
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
I often wonder what procedures we do on a regular basis that will be considered barbaric in the future.
@Ñoahħħ
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
I’m not sure why I looked up lobotomy on YouTube, but I’m so happy I found your channel in this video. You just earned a subscriber much love.❤❤❤
@parkour267
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Bojack horseman has a good episode on this
@conniestraffon9053
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Whilst the thought of being involuntarily dunked into ice cold water is barbaric and disturbing, 'ice diving' is a technique used in dialectal behaviour therapy to this day as a way of breaking free from a panic state, it's a skill taught for emotional regulation. When someone actually decides to use this shock to help themselves it can actually be really helpful and stop much more harmful behaviours! Forcing someone into ice water though? PTSD waiting to happen.
@pocoloco2409
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
The Big doctors at the famous sanitariums, asylums and psychwards was the real insane ones, their thoughts and their operations and their "treatments" where the real insane ones.. how could they do this for 100s year?
@michaeljohn7398
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
We now have Chemical Lobotomies with patients turned into living vegetables. Most Phsyc Wards have their Vegy Patch, ie patients immobilized by drugs. Cheers from Michael. Australia.
@michaeljohn7398
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
This is absolutely sickening 😭. I get the same sickening feeling now watching the Insanity in America with the Trump Administration and in particular RFKs Lobotomy of the health care system. Cheers from Michael. Australia.
@ATFvsDOG
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
I went into a partial hospitalization program (last outpatient level before inpatient) and dunking the face in ice water is a good way to shock the nervous system into a reset. As a way to try to pull oneself out of a panic attack. That is interesting that it is still taught by phd level professionals and thinking about the ice bath community reference.
@belongtobill
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Who else learned about Lobotomy’s originally from Sucker Punch??
@Stratiis
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Rest in peace howard dulley
@visibletoa11userz
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
My Dad used to chase me around the house before I was in kindergarten and say he was going to help me. i trusted him but he grabbed my eye area and then tried to poke me with something metal. After that I never let him get close to me and i never got close to my parents again and this was in the 80's…
@cindy3933
November 20, 2025 at 9:31 pm
Why am i losing it at the cat diagram at 10:25
Comments are closed.