As an aside. Like Thalidomide (Which has recently come back into favour as an effective treatment for some conditions such as Cancer and complications of leprosy)
I think Psycho-surgery is due a comeback too
The surprising thing about the ice pick lobotomies is that, despite the technique not really being any more sophisticated than shooting somebody in the head and hoping that it would make them better, a lot of patients did actually benefit from the treatment. The trouble was that the results were rather random and the consequences for an unsuccessful procedure devastating for the patient.
The problem was that, back then...
a) The technique was crude as ****
b) Understanding of how the brain actually worked was far more limited than it is today
c) There was no means of scanning patients brains to see which part of the brain was actually causing trouble.
Nowadays we have scanners that can check out actual brain activity as it happens, we have surgical techniques that can pretty well go down to picking out individual brain cells.
I actually think this is a procedure that should be re-investigated. After all many medical procedures come in and out of fashion over time.
For example, I believe Radium Needles are being used again to treat some cases of cancer (One of the earliest forms of radiotherapy, but fell out of fashion as other treatments came along) And even
Coleys Toxins are being re-investigated
Psycho-surgery may well have been a barbaric and totally unpredictable treatment in the 1950's. But with today's knowledge and techniques it may well be beneficial today. Especially for patients who fail to respond well to the various drug based therapies.
It is easy to forget that Meds are not without their consequences too, either in terms of the short term side effects (Turning otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people into zombies) or the in terms of long term permanent and irreversible damage to the nervous system. (Extended use of some anti-psychotics can cause irreversible Parkinson disease. AKA the Modicate Shuffle
). Only people who have had long term contact with patients with schizophrenia and so on can really appreciate just how unpleasant these side effects can be and how much distress it causes the patient. Which is why patients cannot be relied upon to take their meds other than in a regulated hospital environment. The side effects are so unpleasant that the patients would rather just be mad
If modern surgery can provide an effective and permanent alternative treatment then I cant really see this as being a bad thing really.