I've been watching PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) on American TV. It's
usually pretty good programming, and quite a few interesting documentaries.

Tonight's show (The Lobotomist) was about the physician who developed
lobotomy - a crude surgery where a pick was inserted into a patient's brain,
it was moved around until the person no longer functioned as he/she once
did. It was introduced somewhere around 1930, and was initially ignored. One
doctor (Freeman) took it, developed it, and ran with it. Wooing the press
(because he knew if he could get the press to support his ideas, he would be
able to win the public), he was able to create a huge amount of positive
publicity, and it became a widely used procedure for mentally ill patients. 

At first it was used only on exceptionally ill patients, suicidal people,
people with definate violent tendancies, extreme cases. Then, it became
almost a mass surgery. One of the states, West Virginia, was mentioned as
extremely poor, and with overcrowded mental institutions. The surgery
suddenly became a boon to the directors of said institutions, because it was
inexpensive, and "so simple anyone could do it.", until the 1960's, when it
fell out of favor (for the most part) again reserved for the most extreme
cases

I finally had to turn it off. I may watch it later, on pbs.org, but for now,
I found myself inserting the word "formula" for lobotomy. When they talked
about how the long term consequences were either not studied, or ignored
because they didn't support the "need to move people out of institutions"
(due to economic realities, the states could not afford to take care of the
institutionalized).

There were so many parallels, it made me uncomfortable. The economic factor,
the "who will deal with this person" factor, the courting the press factor,
the unstudied long-term consequences, the known consequences which were
ignored due to economics.

I certainly mean no disrespect to families who have had to deal with the
issue of mental illness (mine, included) but find it interesting that we, as
a society, have embraced "easy answers" which are anything but easy,
anything but intricate.

Best wishes from someone who just took a lonely 5-hour car trip, and had
plenty of time to ruminate...

Sam Doak

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