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Antonio Egas Moniz was nominated for his contribution to science , the lobotomy. He wouldn't be my first or last pick for such a prestigious honor and apparently others feel the same way. In a case of severe poetic justice, the 1949 Nobel Prize winner was shot and paralyzed by a disgruntled patient.
Interestingly, about a week ago in GB there was a programme on Telly about brain surgery. Quite a large section was devoted to the “work” of Walter Freeman, who was inspired by Moniz and went on to develop what can only be described as a “lobotomy roadshow”.
They found one of Freeman’s former patients, Howard Dully,who had been lobotomized at 12 because his stepmother found him too much of a handful. It did no good, and soon the boy was moving from institution to institution. However, later on he managed to pull his life together and became a California state certified behind-the-wheel instructor for a school bus company in San Jose.
Here was an opportunity to do an MRI scan on a living lobotomy patient, which revealed that there were two great holes in his brain where, in effect, an ice pick had been shoved behind his skull just above the eyebrow. These were in the region associated with self-control and dealing with impulses. It was suggested that because he was so young at the time, surrounding regions of the brain had been able to take over the functions of the destroyed ones.
Moving a bit forward in time, the next vignette showed a surgeon with a Spanish surname, who had implanted an electrode into a fighting bull, in the part of the brain responsible for aggressive behaviour. He had gone into the ring and was being charged by the bull, which stopped in its tracks and wandered aimlessly every time the surgeon pressed the button on a radio transmitter.
This was followed with the story of a man who had developed Parkinson’s disease in his late 50s, and ten years later his medication was becoming less and less effective. They planted an electrode in his brain which damped down the faulty signalling, and he had recovered much of his mobility and communication.
Finishing with a woman who was, while awake, being given electrical stimulation to point up the areas which should not be removed along with the vascular tumour which had been giving her seizures, they remarked that today’s electronic brain surgery is wonderful indeed, but it has come at quite a human cost.