Two Orbitoclasts
Orbitoclast is a surgical instrument used to perform transorbital lobotomies. It was invented by Dr. Walter Freeman in 1948 as a substitute for the only form of leucotomy then used for such interventions. The instrument in question is shaped like a ice breaker, with some marks engraved on the handle and a wedge structure on the outer end. The operation consists in inserting the instrument behind the eyelid of the patient, piercing the thin bone layer that is placed below it, and through hammer stroke penetrate the instrument up to the frontal lobe. The orbitoclast is then moved in various directions in order to detach the frontal lobes from the thalamus. In 1948, Freeman perfected the procedure by introducing a deep frontal cut and a further movement of the tip in the lobe, in order to avoid - as occasionally happened earlier - that the orbitoclasto breaks in the head of the patient, thus requiring surgical removal. In addition, Freeman managed to commission the production of orbital materials of more durable and reliable material.
Since genuine ice splines were used during the first interventions, the procedure was nicknamed "ice pick lobotomy". In 1949, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine at Egas Moniz, "for his discovery of the therapeutic value of lobotomy in some psychoses." Voices correlateemodify wikitesto
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