enthalpy

Thursday, November 17, 2005


The legacy of the lobotomy is still with us, and will be for many horrible years to come.
He was lobotomized, it turns out, for no other reason than that he didn't get along with his stepmother, whose long list of complaints about him included sullenness, a reluctance to bathe and that he turned on the lights during daytime. Mr. Dully's father signed off on the procedure, without seeming to take much of an interest in it, and the most dramatic moment in the documentary comes when, after 40 years of silence on the subject, Mr. Dully asks him why. "I got manipulated pure and simple," the father says. "I was sold a bill of goods." But he quickly adds that "nobody is perfect" and that in any case he doesn't like to "dwell on negative ideas." "You shaped up pretty good," he says to his son.
This didn't happen in the middle ages, nor was it some bizarre experiment of Joseph Mengele. this was common medical practice, and only 40 years ago.



Home