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A Transnational Perspective on Psychosurgery: Beyond Portugal and the United States

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0964704x.2013.862123

1744-5213

Brianne M. Collins, Henderikus J. Stam,

History of Medical Practice

AbstractThe history of psychosurgery is most often recounted as a narrative wherein Portuguese and American physicians play the leading role. It is a traditional narrative in which the United States and, at times, Portugal are central in the development and spread of psychosurgery. Here we largely abandon the archetypal narrative and provide one of the first transnational accounts of psychosurgery to demonstrate the existence of a global psychosurgical community in which more than 40 countries participated, bolstered, critiqued, modified and heralded the treatment. From its inception in 1935 until its decline in the mid-1960s, psychosurgery was performed on almost all continents. Rather than being a phenomenon isolated to the United States and Portugal, it became a truly transnational movement.Keywords: globalinternationalleucotomylobotomypsychosurgerytransnational AcknowledgementsIn addition to the papers we translated ourselves out of the French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, we would like to sincerely thank the following individuals for assistance with translating a number of articles out of other languages: Erna Kurbegovic, Basia Niemiec, Vladimir Pavlov, and Michaela Zverina.Notes1 See, for example, Shutts (Citation1982), Valenstein (Citation1986), Braslow (Citation1997), Pressman (Citation1998), El-Hai (Citation2005), Getz (Citation2009), and Raz (Citation2013). It should be noted as well that it is logical that Americans and other English-speaking historians have often focused their histories on the United States. However, there is still a propensity for the United States to be studied when other sources do exist even in the English language. For instance, very little has been written on Canadian involvement in psychosurgery (see Collins, Citation2012)2 This is not to say that no scholar has attempted to consider a more international perspective. For instance, Valenstein (Citation1980) noted a number of countries where psychosurgery was conducted (pp. 25–27). Our article expands upon Valenstein's initial list by considering a transnational narrative.3 This is a preliminary estimate based on research to date. For a summary of the countries, see Table 1.4 See, for example, Tranoy (Citation1996), Tranoy and Blomberg (Citation2005), and Ögren and Sandlund (Citation2007).5 For instance, Munro (Citation2006) mentioned China's experimentation with psychosurgery in the 1950s amidst a larger work on psychiatry and political dissidents. Another instance occurred in a book chapter by Gijwijst-Hofstra (Citation2005) where psychosurgery is but a footnote (p. 67).6 There were, of course, no psychosurgeons who were trained as such; instead, these were physicians (much of the time neurosurgeons and sometimes psychiatrists) who performed psychosurgical operations throughout the period under study in this article.7 For a detailed history of the development of the discipline of neurosurgery, see Greenblatt, Forcht Dagi, and Epstein (Citation1997).8 His name has also been spelled "Pussep."9 It should be noted that when we use the term psychosurgery in this article, we are referring to a variety of treatments (e.g., prefrontal lobotomy, prefrontal leucotomy, various undercutting procedures, topectomies) developed most notably in the 1930s through 1950s by Moniz, Freeman and Watts, and others as described below. For the purposes of this article, the history of psychosurgery spans roughly 30 years as these earlier surgical techniques notably declined into the 1960s. We do recognize that further developments in neurosurgical treatment of psychiatric illness continued to develop beyond these years (e.g., capsulotomy, stereotactic surgery) and into the present day (e.g., deep brain stimulation) and we are not implying their decline nor ignoring their existence.10 For instance, surgeries carried on into the 1970s in Israel (Zalashik & Davidovitch, Citation2006).11 Due to the size of the international literature and the space available here, we list only one source example (in order) for each country listed in Table 1. To be sure, for many countries, such as France, England, and Italy, there is a substantial literature on the topic. For surgeries conducted in Africa see Porot and Descuns (Citation1955), Sorour (Citation1957), and Jacobson (Citation1951). For surgeries conducted in Asia, see Munro, (Citation2006), Balkrishna Rao (Citation1952), Parhad, (Citation1953), Zalashik and Davidovitch (Citation2006), Hirose, (Citation1966), Zahmacioglu, Dinc, and Naderi (Citation2009), and Surat, (Citation1949). For surgeries conducted in Europe, see Huber (Citation1950), Cosyns-Duret (Citation1954), Adler (Citation1951), Tranoy and Blomberg (Citation2005), Robin (Citation1959), Wertheimer and Angel (Citation1951). Merrem (Citation1950), de Lehoczky (Citation1951), Guerra and Sacco (Citation1954), Eringa (Citation1950), Tranoy and Blomberg (Citation2005), Furtado et al. (Citation1949), Barcia Goyanes and Domingo Simó (Citation1951), Nilsson (Citation1949), Rorschach (Citation1951), and Kostic (Citation1953). For surgeries conducted in North America, see McKenzie and Proctor (Citation1946), González Murillo and Orlich (Citation1963), Corria (Citation1949), Velasco-Suarez (Citation1949), Gonzales Revilla (1952), and Valenstein (Citation1986). For surgeries conducted in Oceania, see Edwards (Citation1947) and McLachlan and Falconer (Citation1950). Finally, for surgeries performed in South America, see Mosovich (Citation1953), Masiero (Citation2003), Jiménez Arango (Citation1952), and Iñiguez and Muñoz (Citation1949).12 For more information on surgical variations, see Valenstein (Citation1986).13 For more information on the development of the somatic treatments (including psychosurgery's place among them) in the 1930s, see Valenstein (Citation1986) and Pressman (Citation1998) for helpful background.14 Proceedings can be found in the Walter Freeman and James Watts Papers, 1918–1988, Collection Number MS0803, Series 1.4 Publications, 1918-1972, Box 14, Folder 42, GWU Archives, Washington, DC, USA. The proceedings were also published by a number of companies.15 Egas Moniz was nominated for the Nobel Prize on a number of occasions (e.g., 1928, 1937, 1943) for his work on cerebral angiography and leucotomy. Although Moniz had not been granted the prize on previous occasions, in 1949 he was nominated again by physicians in Portugal, Brazil, and Denmark. For a detailed description of these various nominations and their outcomes, see Stolt (Citation2002).16 As there were various surgical varieties of psychosurgery developed from Moniz onward, the decline in the 1960s refers to the more primitive procedures (e.g., prefrontal leucotomy, prefrontal lobotomy, transorbital lobotomy, etc.). By this time, there were of course new developments in psychosurgical technique emerging (e.g., stereotaxic approaches).17 Of course, we do not know how this affected actual practice in the USSR since psychiatry was known for its abuses during the Soviet period, particularly for its "treatment" of dissent (e.g., van Voren, Citation2010).18 Letters thanking Freeman for reprints can be found in the Walter Freeman and James Watts Papers, 1918–1988, Collection Number MS0803, Subseries 1.1 Correspondence 1918-1972, Box 5, Folder 7, GWU Archives, Washington, DC, USA.19 In particular, Freeman visited his South American disciples in 1957 (see letter to Miss Bella Harrison on December 17, 1957, Walter Freeman and James Watts Papers, 1918–1988, Collection Number MS0803, Subseries 1.1 Correspondence 1918–1972, Box 1, Folder 9, GWU Archives, Washington, DC, USA).