Last resort? Lobotomy operations in Israel, 1946–60

Zalashik, Rakefet; Davidovitch, Nadav

doi:10.1177/0957154x06058593

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The effect of World War II in creating a negative opinion of lobotomy can be seen, for example, in the Israeli physician, Mark Dvorzarsky: he associated the procedure with the malpractice of Nazi physicians who conducted cruel experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Dvorzarsky stated that lobotomy had no scientific basis, so it was more of an experiment than a therapy, and posed a risk of evolving into a new form of punishment (Zalashik and Davidovitch, 2006: 101). War experiences might have had the same effect on Polish medical staff; the procedure was quickly abandoned in Poland.…”

Section: Polish Psychiatry In the Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As noted by Ploumpidis, Tsiamis and Poulakou-Rebelakou (2015), lobotomy in different countries each had its own history, depending on local circumstances. Recent publications describe the local context of the procedure in certain countries (Kotowicz, 2008; Ögren & Sandlund, 2005; Ploumpidis et al, 2015; Salminem, 2011; Tranøy and Blomberg, 2005; Zalashik and Davidovitch, 2006). The history of lobotomy in Poland may bear superficial resemblance to its history in Norway, in terms of a sanitization of biographies of people involved in the procedure (Tranøy and Blomberg, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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History of lobotomy in Poland

Jęczmińska

2017

Hist Psychiatry

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In Poland, there were 176 cases of prefrontal leucotomy performed by Moniz's method between 1947 and 1951. There were also several cases in which alternative psychosurgical techniques were used: prefrontal topectomy by Bilikiewicz and colleagues, and prefrontal topischemia by Ziemnowicz. This article analyses the following: publications by Choróbski, who performed lobotomy in Poland, and by Korzeniowski, who assessed its short-term results; a report by Bornsztajn, who reviewed general results of the method; and clinical research by Broszkiewicz and by Konieczyńska, who assessed Polish patients in terms of long-term results of lobotomy. Negative clinical evaluation of lobotomy led to its abandonment in Poland, a decision strengthened by a regulation that forbade lobotomy in the USSR and impacted Polish psychiatry.

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Section: Polish Psychiatry In the Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of lobotomy in Poland

Jęczmińska

2017

Hist Psychiatry

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“…We know it was widely used in the USA (Kucharski, 1984), led by Walter Freeman (Freeman and Watts, 1937, 1944, 1945), while in Europe the most extensive use was in Great Britain (Tooth and Newton, 1961), Sweden (Ogren and Sandlund, 2005), Finland (Salminen 2012), Norway (Tranoy and Blomberg, 2005) and Italy (Kotowicz, 2008). In Israel the method had a more restricted application (Zalashik and Davidovitch, 2006). The differences among these countries concern the timing, the technique and the spread of the use of the operation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of leucotomies in Greece

2015

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In order to present the social, scientific and institutional context which permitted the use of leucotomies in Greece, we have reviewed the Archives of the Medical Associations, the medical literature of the years 1946-56, a reader's dissertation and the memoirs of two psychiatrists. More than 250 leucotomies were done in the two public psychiatric hospitals in Athens from 1947 to 1954, as well as 40 leucotomies in the public psychiatric hospital in Thessaloniki. Although aware of the side effects, psychiatrists justified the use of the procedure. The performance of leucotomies in Greece declined because of reports of the dangers of the operation and its unpredictable outcome for the patients, but mainly because of the encouraging results with psychotropic drugs in the early 1950s.

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Schmerz und Anästhesiologie

Witte

2011

Anaesthesist

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The connection between the development of anesthesiology and pain therapy in the twentieth century is close. The optimistic idea to overcome pain by using general anesthesia derives from the nineteenth century. Treatment of nonsurgical pain remained in the background for a long time and innovations in pain medicine did not improve the insufficient care for patients with postoperative pain. Therapy of chronic pain was mainly surgical and the extreme of this surgical approach was psychosurgery. In the years following World War II leucotomy and lobotomy were established as methods to separate the psychological processing of pain from the experience of pain. Meanwhile, the French "pain surgeon" René Leriche elaborated a theory of pain where chronic pain was no longer seen as a symptom but as a "douleur-maladie", a pain disease. His theory was considered on various occasions but did not gain acceptance before the 1950s. Research in anesthesiology, such as that conducted by the American scientist Henry Beecher separated psyche and physiology with respect to pathological pain. This was contrasted by the approach of clinical anesthesia to pain therapy, which was based on regional anesthesia. The first "pain clinics" were "nerve block clinics". John Bonica, a regional anesthesiologist, extended the framework of pain therapy by introducing multidisciplinary teamwork into the therapy of chronic pain. From today's viewpoint his 1953 monograph The Management of Chronic Pain is a milestone in the development of modern pain therapy. However, Bonica's work did not attain major importance until 1960 when he was appointed to a newly established chair. Gradually, chronic pain was recognized as an independent illness and differentiated as such from acute pain. In 1965 the gate control theory by Melzack and Wall offered a possible explanation for the mechanisms of chronic pain. By the end of the 1970s the spectrum was extended to the biopsychosocial approach which was foremost developed by the American psychiatrist George Engel, defined chronic pain as an illness rather than a disease. Concurrently, the radical behaviorism of the late 1960s affected both the therapy of chronic and of acute pain. Based on this theory, patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) was introduced in the 1970s and 1980s. Acute pain services (APS) in hospitals, were developed beginning in the 1980s using the continuous release of opioids. Regional anesthesia played a greater role than general anesthesia in developing pain therapy in the twentieth century and paved the way for pain therapy. The restriction to nerve blocks in pain centers was overcome by the expansion of theoretical foundations beyond the framework of anesthesiology. Impulses from psychology and psychosomatic medicine were crucial. The evolution of cancer pain therapy was distinct from non-cancer pain therapy.

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Last resort? Lobotomy operations in Israel, 1946–60

Abstract: In this paper we examine lobotomy operations in mandatory Palestine and Israel between 1946 and 1960

Cited by 7 publications

References 11 publications

History of lobotomy in Poland

History of lobotomy in Poland

History of leucotomies in Greece

Schmerz und Anästhesiologie

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