The Worst Nobel Prize in History 

-Hey doc, I can't sleep, I need help. -Oh, let me turn off 1/4 of your brain. Forever.

So the lobotomy didn't go out of fashion because of it's side effects, but because medication made it obsolete?

Just one year after Moniz won his Nobel Prize for the lobotomy, *the Soviet Union outlawed the procedure* on the grounds that it was, and I quote, “contrary to the principles of humanity.” Germany and Japan followed suit not long thereafter.

I would be mean if I survived a railroad spike driving through my skull too

its like saying.."i can get rid of your depression....along with every other emotion you have"

the person who invented knocking probably got a no-bell prize.

Doctor: don’t worry they shouldn’t feel depression or anxiety People: are you sure? They seem very shallow and disoriented Doctor: Oh that’s just a side affect, the important thing is they aren’t suffering People: how do you think they feel? Doctor: they don’t

In San Diego, in the early 70's, hospitals were still doing lobotomys. I was in one hospital, yes, on the nut ward, and a dr tried to get me to agree to have one. I refused.

You can't feel sad If you can't feel emotions at all

A lobotomy sounds like trying to fix a PC's motherboard by smashing it with a hammer.

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia when i was 16 and one of the first questions my psychiatrist asked is if i was willing to sign off on electro shock therapy... I was not

So basically the conscious part of her is still in there, it just doesn't have access to the rest of the brain or any ability to control the body? Lovely.

Makes you wonder what procedures we're doing now that may seem barbaric in the future.

The horrific part of all this is that I don't think the "turned off" part of their brain actually dies, it just can't connect to the rest of the brain and the body anymore. Forever alone.

-Look, she isn't depressed anymore! -She can't express emotions -BUT IT'S CURED! -Bro wdf???

I shudder at the idea of a veteran coming home with "shellshock" from WWII and getting lobotomized. Jesus.

how do fix brain? Poke hole in brain.

a green, green screen ?

As a general rule, don’t take something out without first knowing why it’s there in the first place.

Wait... so if all it did was prevent patients from DISPLAYING the symptoms, that implies that on top of being lobotomized, patients STILL suffered through their mental ailments and had no way of expressing it.

I would be mean if a railroad spike went through my head too

And it was the only scientific Nobel Prize we ever recieved! Yay Portugal!

Imagine getting a Nobel prize award for removing someone's soul.

For insomnia? "I'm having trouble sleeping" "well obviously we need to shove an ice pick into your brain"

Yknow, I was sitting on the pot thinking, I am so lucky to be born in an age where cancer is remotely survivable. I am so lucky to be born in a time where I wouldn't be ostracized for not acting like everyone else. I am so damn lucky to have been born in a time where lobotomy doesn't exist.

I'm so glad I live in the 21st century. It's by far the best century yet.

Fun fact: JFK's older sister was lobotomized in her early 20s. It left her physically unable to take care of herself and she was institutionalized for the rest of her life.

" I am going to give that doctor a piece of my mind!" Doctor overhears and says "If you only knew the half of it!"

I am currently recovering from severe clinical depression after many years of struggle, and I just realised that instead of getting help, I would have been lobotomised if I had been born just a hundred years earlier. Odd thought. Thank goodness for medicine and therapy.

Am I the only one who actually enjoys Michael being a host? Seems like everyone keeps bashing him...

The USSR banned Lobotomy as the first state ever.

Me: I think I have a headache Doctor: We have the solution just for that Doctor *shows me a guillotine

I was watching this episode in my office while eating popeye's chicken, while all of a sudden my wife walks behind me to see what i was watching and asked: "what are you watching, good-looking nerd talk?" Michael you are a good looking nerd, my friend.

"After Fulton removed their entire frontal cortex they became more docile, relaxed, calm " Yeah like no fucking shit they're kinda half dead Like, how do you not put that together???? History is fucking mind boggling

The Noble Prize you get when you do surgery on a grape

My grandmother fell and hit her head and has never been the same. She had bleeding on her brain and once healed, we saw an immediate difference where she became agitated, spiteful, and can be rather mean. She also has a tendency to have false memories or not remember certain things. And her doctor has equated her to having some form of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. If you say it’s hot in the house she’ll claim she’s freezing. If you claim you’re cold she’ll immediately claim it’s hot. It’s crazy.

That's what they did to Rosemary Kennedy (John F. Kennedy's sister) and the result was devastating.

Lobotomy is my nightmare. I would honestly rather die than let someone turn me into a husk.

I recently suffered a burnout caused by teacher-induced anxiety, and it was like my frontal cortex turned off for a few days, and let me tell you, suddenly being rendered unable to learn and unable to experience emotions more complex than fear is beyond distressing. I dread to think how horrifying it would be to experience this for the rest of my life like the lobotomy patients.

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.”

A lobotomy process sounds like if you were trying to play the "Operation skill/board game",but instead of being delicate with tweezers,you are just hitting the board with a sledge hammer until you see results.

The hardest thing for me to wrap my mind around is that this procedure was done all the way up to 1952 which blows my mind. I think I read once that there was even a mobile lobotomy vehicle that would drive around and people could have the procedure done in their own homes and even to their own unruly children.

Cant Have Brain Problem If part of Brain Gone -Moniz

"My God, man - drilling holes in his head's not the answer". - Leonard "Bones" McCoy

A statement without any empirical evidences is called a hypothesis, not a theory.

This is simply chilling. I have a difficult time believing this was ever standard practice. It sounds like something out of an episode of doctor who.

You guys need to hire a Bob, so he can say "Hi, I'm Sci Show Bob"

So basically, Moniz is the perfect example of "Good intentions, terrible execution"

Let us not forget the sister of Kennedy who had a minor mental impairment (she could read and right, but had a limited vocabulary) and, after receiving a lobotomy, never spoke again.

I feel bad for him, it didn't seem like he did it out of malice. If the way you're describing him is true it did seem like he generally just wanted to help sick people, and thought he had.

Remember kids.... few decades ago this was considered "settled science."

"Sometimes, my genius is... It's almost frightening."

This just shows that there's no such thing as a soul, it's all the brain.

Does nobody have any record of what a labotomized person *says* it feels like? Could they even tell?

worst noble prize given to Aung San Syu Ki for peace (ironically she is directly responsible for genoncide in her own country - Burma( also called Myanmar).

Guy who invented the lobotomy: "I get *no* respect! No respect at all!"

I used to work with someone who had a lobotomy to treat her seizures. It worked, but it destroyed her ability to differentiate fantasy and reality and turned her into a psychotic mess that could never have a real job and would accuse her staff of all kinds of crazy stuff.

"I have half a mind..."

Every time i hear about lobotomies my heart sinks and i feel a pit in my stomach. It is horrifying.

Interesting and informative video. One Joseph Kennedy's daughters was believed to have had an unsuccessful lobotomy and spent her entire adult life in a mental institution. She was given the lobotomy because she was rebellious as a teenager. One of the developers of the lobotomy technique was later killed by a patient that he performed the surgery on. There were cases where lobotomies were performed in a doctor's office with an ice pick and at least one case where a lobotomist performed a lobotomy on a street when he encountered one of his psychiatric patients that was hysterical and being restrained by the police. The lobotomist identified himself to the police and performed a lobotomy on the spot with an ice pick. Insane, but true.

patients have fears and depression? erase their emotion so they don't know a thing about joy

That experiment is fucking awful

Imagine being awarded the nobel prize for learning how to pierce one's brain

"Hey doctor , im too organised.Help me" "Oh let me stir your brain with two spikes"

I can't help but stare @ his ear lobe, it wiggles while he talks.

What about Obama's peace prize ? Awarding a warmonger for warmongering, seems to be most regrettable award.

Then the Byte of '87 happened. Yeah, uh, It's really incredible that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, huh? -Phone Guy Actually how I got into neuroscience

I knew lobotomies were bad, especially knowing what happened to Rosemary Kennedy but I felt my heart crack when I heard the bit about the loss of creativity. Without my creativity, I wouldn't have typed this comment. Had I had been born in that time period, I would have preferred death because to live an existence without any creativity to give it meaning or purpose would be worse, mental illness be damned.

Rise and shine, Dr. Freeman... rise and shine.

He forgot to mention that Walter Freeman, the man who did almost all of the lobotomies in the U.S, after the practice was deemed inhumane and the doctor was shunned from the world psychology - he moved to California. This is where he offered his services to husbands who felt like their wives were too feisty, or housewives who felt depressed, or unsatisfied in their lives, or parents who felt like their child was too wild. It's rumoured he preformed several thousand lobotomies in California, on women and children who may not have even had mental disorders. The lobotomy's history is a dark chapter in psychology's history, but one that we can't forget.

My blood pressure is skyrocketing watching this, I dont think I can handle the reality of this jesus christ, i feel like I'm going to pass out

And George Papanikolaou (test pap inventor) was nominated a lot of times for the Nobel Prize and never eventually got it

On three pages of this comment section "Obama" has been mentioned twenty five times. Good job.

The award of the "most regrettable Nobel prize" now belongs Aung San Suu Kyi.

I had an incredibly loud doorbell that drove all my neighbours crazy. I had this replaced with a lovely handmade softwood knocker for the door. Therefore, inevitably, I would win the no bell peace prize.

"It's amazing that the human body can live without a frontal lobe."

you make it seem like Moniz was a bad man, he did what he tought was right, he did not know how the brain works like we do now, he saw a woman that wanted to kill her kids, he cut a slice of her Brain and she kept living a normal life without emotions but without wanting to kill her kids either

People in these comments are talking about how barbaric the procedure was and wonder aloud how such a thing could have caught on. It's a bit long, but let me share with you my own personal experience that I think helps me understand how such treatment comes about. I was in a mental hospital once for depression. They suggested electro-shock therapy. Really tried to sell me on it, claimed there were no side effects, it's incredibly effective, etc. I'm a naturally skeptical person, so I held it off until I could go out on my own and get my own information on the subject. It's clear that there's a big divide between what practitioners claim about the procedure and the reality. 75% of people who got ECT claim they never gave "informed consent," most suffer long-term deficits, appear to not just lose abilities, but the ability to recognize they've lost that ability, and a great deal of people who get ECT get it in situations that the US surgeon general says it is not a good fit for: long-term depression, personality disorders or multiple sessions (ECT is only approved to be used once or twice EVER). The advocates of the procedure argue (correctly) that in extreme cases it may be necessary. However, even they say they think ECT works by creating controlled brain damage if they don't just go "oh, well know one knows why it works, it just does!". This, they believe, allows the brain to "rewire" itself into a less depressed state. Critics argue that it causes brain damage in the frontal lobes which inhibits the persons ability to understand or communicate the damage that has been done to their cognitive abilities. Side effects of the procedure include reduction in cognitive ability (almost always), reduction in the ability to remember new events (extremely common), permanent memory loss (almost always to a certain extent, though it's less common to lose years or decades of declarative memroy), lethargy (not usually permanent), confusion (usually not permanent), and coma (extraordinarily rare these days). Hemmingway killed himself not because he was depressed, but because he was prescribed ECT for depression and couldn't live with the debilitating mental effects of it. This is what constitutes "no side effects" that "can even be used when you're pregnant." This is also why very few people believe they were not given informed consent. When you are put in a mental hospital, it is a very unusual experience and there is virtually no information getting to you. The only information you have comes from the person in charge of your case. If you ask your family to look into the procedure (if you are lucky enough to have a family that cares and is accessible during visiting hours), a superficial look online might seem to indicate it's a perfectly acceptable treatment and if you're in a mental hospital they're probably desperate (and also not the ones who will get ECT). They'll set you up with a "second opinion" which is often a person who actively performs the procedure, but does not necessarily see psychiatric patients. In these kinds of situations, extreme practices can proliferate.

Moral of the video : Don't drill random holes into body parts

A good chunk of the effects of lobotomy sounds like what happened to me after months of a very intense depressive episode. I have dysthymia, so mild to severe depressive episodes will be always part of my life, but while dread and sadness parts of depression are bad, not feeling anything is way WAY worse to go through.

The lobotomy is such a lazy and tragic period in history, so many people in asylums and its easier to get the people as out of the way as possible.

People need to keep in mind that the Nobel Prize in Medicine, is for advances in our understanding of medicine. Not for moral rectitude. Moniz's work did in fact advance our understanding of medicine, indeed he's largely responsible for what we do understand about our brains. Giving him the prize in medicine is not a judgement on whether his work was beneficial for society. It's a judgement on how beneficial his work is to science. Much of what we now know about how the brain works comes from those lobotomy patients. Nobody would have known to make a dopamine inhibitor if they hadn't first known which part of the brain they should be looking at. Dopamine flow is the reason why cutting the line to the thalamus worked. Sure, it's better to simply stop the dopamine: but if they hadn't first known about lobotomy they wouldn't have known to target dopamine. Scientific discoveries don't happen in a vacuum: they cause one another.

Why can’t we just admit that science can be wrong sometimes?

The irony is so intense

"But which part do we take out to stop psychosis?" "Ehhh, I don't know. Just take it all out."

As some one with autism I was told early on about this "cure all" and it always disgusted me and terrified me that someone high up might decide that the old way was the best way, it even scares me today. The thought that I could lose everything that makes me me is terrifying, to lose my thoughts and emotions, the equivalent of my soul to "cure" my condition to make it easier for society... I would rather die.

Knock knock? Who’s there? Nobel Nobel who? No-bell so I’ll knock!

"Doctor, I have a headache" "Okay I-ll just get your brain open and lets see how it goes"

I can't imagine this ever being widespread. It makes my skin crawl. I have vivid memories of being called in to be a personal helper when I was in 6th grade. An 8 year old girl wanted to dance ballet, but had almost no fine motor skills or significant control over the right side of her body. She could pick her right foot maybe a couple inches off the ground. Her partial lobotomy was thanks to a huge malignant tumor which was threatening her life. I get chills think about this being used as anything but a late resort to save a life. Humans can be really shitty.

Another Nobel prize that I think is wrong is Obamas peace prize....

Oh well, I came here after watching Shutter Island [2010]

“But phineas gage lost a bit of his mind so obviously he lost his mind” -samonella

It's terrifying to think that had I lived some 60-70 years earlier, just because I had a traumatic experience when I was young that caused a massive phobia, that the doctors would have thought it appropriate to pull a dementor and remove what is basically my soul. Because remember kids, the most important thing is behaving normally. To hell with personal happiness and peace of mind.

I disagree with this "worst" qualifier. Sure, in hindsight we know what lobotomy was doing to these patients. But at the time, this research was pioneering in treating their patients. The doctors weren't evil or exhibiting malice. They were genuinely trying to advance science. If you had to evaluate this prize only with the knowledge they had at the time, you would certainly see it differently.

Scientists have forever asked only "can we" without asking "should we"

I came searching here after starting the new Netflix show Ratched & being aghast at what a lobotomy seemed to be!!

Holy crap! I'm so relieved that I didn't live in that time. Great video as always!

I hate the way people these days condemn the people of the past, like they knew what we know now. People a hundred years ago didn't know what the brain did, just as people two hundred years ago didn't know about microbes. Expecting and judging them based on our standards is just stupid.

I actually feel bad for Egas Moniz. He made brilliant work on previous discoveries but only his worst one, which he himself didn't supported as a norm procedure, was popularised. Great job America, Japan and Russia propaganda.

Who's here after watching Ratched ?