Lobotomy Back in Spotlight After 30 Years

Lobotomy Back in Spotlight After 30 Years

By LINDA A. JOHNSON,
Associated Press Writer
51 minutes ago

The lobotomy, once a widely used method for treating mental illness, epilepsy and even chronic headaches, is generating fresh controversy 30 years after doctors stopped performing the procedure now viewed as barbaric.

A new book and a medical historian contend the crude brain surgery actually helped roughly 10 percent of the estimated 50,000 Americans who underwent the procedure between the mid-1930s and the 1970s. But relatives of lobotomy patients want the Nobel Prize given to its inventor revoked.

SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050713/ap_on_he_me/lobotomy_debate