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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.
I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
with Slurpee Frogs.
You'll get that at the end of the episode.
But there's a Deb Deb in the room today.
There's a Deb Deb. Say hi.
Hi. Yay. And a Mikey.
What up? we got the full coven in here calling the corners later yeah we got four of us so we can i shit missed you this week i missed you this week it felt weird without you it was very strange we and actually i have a funny story related to it because um we took the fam to storyland in new hampshire except for me and well ash wouldn't go i'm just kidding actually so we invited i told the kids you can't go to storyland unless you have children and tt doesn't have and what's scary is you can you can i saw it not me but a really adorable thing happened where we took the girls to go see uh meet
cinderella oh and she was like the prettiest sweetest cinderella i ever did see and she had the like perfect cinderella voice which is like that like pretty sing -song voice like she just was so i was like i am immediately soothed by you she was a fairy tale and she was so sweet and she held their hands in the picture and they were were like just starstruck and as we're walking away after taking the picture she was like do i know you from somewhere and i was like maybe she was like i listened to you on the radio and she was in full cinderella character like kept the sing song like said the radio
the radio and then she was like she goes i can't believe i'm meeting you right now and i go i can't believe i'm meeting you right now cinderella the kids probably shit themselves that mama knows what's even better was she did like a mic drop at the end because she was like have a beautiful day elena and i hadn't said my name like that was so the girls were like cinderella knows mom holy shit like they were like what the fuck like losing their mind that's iconic one you were awesome cinderella if you hopefully you're listening poor wino for cinderella you're awesome you were an amazing Cinderella you
were beautiful your voice is beautiful you made the girls day I saw a pic you're gorg you also made my day so Cinderella at Storyland from this week you were great and I'm sorry I thought of it later I was like oh I should have said I should have asked if you wanted to like take a picture or something or do something cool but like I didn't think of that so I apologize because I was very hot and we had been at Storyland twice and that's like that's a lot No offense, but that's two more days that I wanted to be there.
We all know Elena hates amusement parks, but she pours one out for the kids.
And you made it, like, really cool.
It's true. And the girls were so happy, and that's all that counts.
I love that. You were awesome and keep being awesome.
Keep it weird. Keep it weird, just like Cinderella.
I just missed you while you were gone.
Yeah, it's always weird. I don't know.
I didn't really do much this week.
I got a lot of wedding stuff done this week.
Well, that's good. Yeah.
We had a very nice family time and we went with Deb Deb and her fam bam I know you guys are all so cute Nice little family time together We love family time You know who didn't love family time?
The Kennedys Definitely not the Kennedys I was going to say Walter Freeman but you are correct These Kennedys did not That's a joke Kidding When we last you We last you When we last you talked to.
It's been a few days.
I also am getting over that illness that started in part one.
Oh, shit. You were sick in part one.
Now I'm at the end of that illness because I wouldn't have been able to talk through this if we'd done it all at once.
I'm kind of glad you went away because I didn't end up getting it.
Oh, knocking on wood.
But when we left you in part one, we were right at the part where, well, we had seen Walter Freeman and his partner there, Watts, kind of fuck up a lot of lobotomies.
Yeah, kind of. They were following the original lobotomy procedure, which is not to be confused with the transorbital lobotomy that he creates later.
Two different things.
But when we last left you, I was talking about how he ended up performing a very failed lobotomy on one Rosemary Kennedy.
This is going to make me so sad.
And this was definitely one of his greatest failures, by far one of his greatest failures, and most public greatest failure for sure.
Did he ever speak on it?
Uh, he considered it just, like, oops, okay, moving on.
Oopsie. Yep, like, there wasn't really...
Wow. Just off we go.
Yeah. It's also, like, they could have, like, owned his life.
You would think, right?
I mean, there's a lot with this.
And I think the outcome was just something that was kind of shoved to the side.
That's really sad. And I don't think anybody was really looking to make a big fuss out of it.
Uh. Because the whole reason it was done, as we'll go into it, was like political aspirations and someone seeming to get in the way of that, according to certain people.
That's fucked up. So let's talk about, finally, Rosemary Kennedy's lobotomy, how it came to be.
And to do that, we need to start with what happened to get there.
Because I don't know, like, I know just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this.
So Rose Kennedy went, not Rosemary, Rose Kennedy, her mother.
Sure. Went into labor on September 13th, 1918, and Rose Kennedy and Joe Sr., they placed a call to their obstetrician, and they were thinking the doctor was going to arrive pretty quickly from Boston.
It wasn't going to be crazy.
But at that time, there was a pneumonia outbreak in Boston, so the doctor was actually detained.
He wasn't able to leave right away.
Oh, shit. Yeah, 1918, am I right?
Yeah, you're right.
Right. So he wasn't going to make it to the Kennedy's house before the baby actually entered the birth canal.
Like it was happening quick.
So I now in 1918, we knew people knew that like you don't hold a baby in the birth canal.
I would imagine that like we probably knew that even before we knew that.
I mean, you'd be surprised, but in 1918, it was well documented that that like what the outcome would be from that, what kind of complications would arise from it, like very much known.
Like, right. We can't blame this on like, oh, we didn't have the research kind of thing.
Because we did. So at the time, believing she was doing the right thing, a young nurse that was present for the birth ended up trying to hold Rose's legs closed to stop the baby from being born.
And when that – I know everybody's making the same face in the room right now.
Yep, everybody. That could, like, kill the baby, right?
That's bad in every way that something can be bad for both mother and baby.
Yeah. And it didn't work because, as we know, when a baby is being born a baby is being born you can't just cross your legs and stop it from happening oh my god so that didn't work so she reached into the birth canal and held the baby's head there and kept the baby in the birth canal for two hours two hours until the doctor arrived yes i don't know like why did the doctor have to be there if the baby was already coming out anyways like what is the fucking logic there i don't i don't know there there is i do not know what and again it was 1918 it was very well established that stopping a baby who is moving
forward down the birth canal would definitely result in some issues like deprivation of oxygen it could result in birth defects brain damage all manner of things um and this is what happened with Rosemary Rosemary was the baby um and they named they actually named her Rosemary but they nicknamed her Rosemary oh okay um now to anybody who was around Rosemary or just saw Rosemary she was just like all the other children around her you know nothing outwardly wrong uh but by the time she entered primary school that's when they started seeing that there was some developmental mental disabilities some
cognitive impairments and god gee i wonder why exactly and as she got older joe and rose kennedy they tried to work with like you know to try to make life easier for her try to make learning easier they hired private tutors to help with school um they also would go out with her hire people to go out with her whenever she went into like the community um and the older she got though the more difficult it was getting and not just for them to like help her but it was now becoming a political thing where uh they were not keeping up appearances because now as she's getting older it's becoming evident
that something's going on and for them the primary issue was that rosemary would go into what they described as fits um what kid doesn't throw a fucking temper tantrum every now and again yeah i mean this was happening to as she was getting older and the fits that they are describing are not temper temper tantrums they're seizures oh she was having seizures um and apparently so the author kate clifford larson described them as seizures or episodes of mental illness quote unquote uh these would happen in public and this would embarrass her parents oh wow how embarrassing it is that you had a fucking
seizure are you kidding me exactly now this whole story is sad from start to finish it really is um because it didn't become a thing of like you know let me just comfort my child and show everybody that like you know this happens to families all over everywhere that like you know kids have to go through this they could have been an example yeah absolutely to show people like you know this is how you show love and affection and you know support for a child who is cognitively impaired like no we're not going to do that that's an it's annoying so now at this point like throughout much of the 20th
century mental illness and cognitive or developmental impairments were a cause of shame and a lot of families would hide or just institutionalize their disabled family members instead of dealing with any of the quote -unquote embarrassment or any social stigma that came from it how they didn't want to deal with it so they would just kind of lock them away that's it like let's pretend they just don't exist that's that's so sad imagine having a child and like you think about like how badly you wanted to have kids yeah and like how hard it is for some people and then some people are just gonna throw
their kids in institutions well and it's like you like they you're not they didn't ask to come into this world like you brought them in right so take care of them like that's your whole job yeah your whole job is supposed to be i brought you into this world it's my job to take care of you and make it safe and make you safe like i'm your one protector yeah it's it's awful and to not not fulfill that responsibility that you bestowed upon yourself and not only not fulfill it but actively like throw them in a cage and you know throw away the key it's like damn and it's like just because of something
they have no control over and did not ask for and did not participating in creating like it is just beyond yeah and the thing is this was also very difficult for the very um devoutly catholic kennedy family because their church um was actually a certain kind of church that deemed disability the result of sin and they viewed it as a punishment from god that is literally so fucked up and makes me so angry yeah you think that that That is a result of sinning.
Go fuck yourself. Yeah.
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That's ridiculous. It's really awful.
So while Joe and Rose Kennedy refused to have their daughter at this time committed to an asylum or an institution of any sort, they weren't going to do the thing of throwing her away and locking up, you know, throwing away the key.
as rosemary got a little older rose said that she was having a little bit of trouble managing her daughter's behavior because it was becoming a little unpredictable and you know as she gets older it's harder to lay down that parent card um and she was also having trouble just meeting her needs without help so they were a very wealthy well very well connected family so they first sent her to various boarding schools where they were hoping she could find some kind of structure get help in school like have more focused learning in school i see that thought process but she was struggling to fit in she
was struggling to meet the demands um but apparently people really liked her like rosemary was an unbelievably charismatic and likable person um and even though she was struggling academically and struggling a little to fit in and kind of like find her place she worked really hard to win the affection and approval of those around her that was like something she really worked at um and very much she really wanted to make her parents proud like it was clear that she just really wanted to win them over essentially yeah like win their love it sounds like and again people around her loved her person they
thought she was her everyone said her personality was so likable so charming she was so charismatic you know look at pictures of her she looks like a hot shit yeah and she is beautiful like she is just like one of the she's like of that era yeah she's what you think of like it's just like she's so cool and so things probably would have continued this way for rosemary i think they probably would have just kept trying what they were trying doing what they were doing you know i think it would have probably went okay right but then her father had political aspirations and by 1938 joe kennedy senior had
been named the ambassador to the court of St. James in Britain, which was a position that required him to present himself and his entire family to monarchy at Buckingham Palace.
See, I think that if you want to present yourself, that's all well and fine.
That's a lot to put on your family for a decision that you want to make.
That's tough. That's tough.
You know what I mean?
It's a lot to, you know, to live up to.
Yeah. And it's a lot to expect of your entire it is but in order to prepare rosemary for the what was now going to be very intense scrutiny of the public um the kennedys enrolled their daughter at the belmont house which was a catholic boarding school that was run by nuns and favored hands -on learning over rote memorization okay and according to um liz lens who's an author um she said quote rosemary flourished under the guidance of the nuns, and was training to become a teacher's aide.
So she was thriving.
Seriously. But then the Germans invaded Paris in 1940, and Joe and Rose pulled their daughter out of Beaumont House and returned to the United States.
So again, she was on this road of, like, if things just kept going the way they were going, we probably would have been okay.
We wouldn't even be sitting here telling the story.
They had to pull them out.
Now, World War II may have prevented Rosemary from being thrust into the spotlight, but it didn't change the fact that the family and especially joe kennedy senior was seeing having having an intellectually disabled daughter a problem and yeah that's such a wild school of thought yeah and he was searching now not just to manage what rosemary was going through he was searching for a cure he wanted these these fits to stop i would love to believe in my heart of hearts that he's a father and was hoping to cure this for his daughter's sake as well but there was definitely political ambitions at the forefront
of this yeah i don't think you can do that and this is when he so in his search he was searching high and low for something something that would cure this he came across the work of walter freeman and james watts no thank you um and this is when they were doing prefrontal lobotomies and it was definitely still controversial in the medical community uh but it was also gaining some traction a little bit in the press um as quote a cure for the physically disabled and mentally ill no return to start pasco yeah don't land in jail stop and by this time rosemary's what they were calling them outbursts
and fits were becoming more and more common she was struggling like more frequent too and now her behavior was kind of teetering like she'd started sneaking out at night and like she's just having fun and the nuns were getting worried that she was going out to pick up up men and would end up like pregnant or fucking live your damn life all right go crazy with that being brought to the kennedys they were like okay so joe kennedy brought up the procedure of the prefrontal lobotomy to his wife rose kennedy rose was skeptical and she was like i don't know about this and she asked her daughter kathleen
to find out more she was like will you go find out for me like i don't know anything about this please just like go tell me if this is real okay and according According to Clifford Larson, Kathleen spoke to a journalist whose name is John White.
I know him. Yeah. And this John White guy had done some reporting on mental illness and treatments for the Washington Times -Herald.
And he had done a real deep dive into this.
So he told Kathleen that the results of the lobotomies were, quote, no good.
And he said, don't, no. Like, I can tell you through my research, people are ending up sometimes worse than they began.
Don't do it. it seems like more often than not worse than they began and you know according to reports Kathleen went back to her mother and said oh no mother no it's nothing we wanted we want done for Rosie so they she was like no this is not good the results are not promising at all in fact they're a little scary like don't do this so Rose was like okay like thanks for letting me know but Joe Joe went ahead and made the decision to have the surgery performed on Rosemary.
What? So like went behind their backs.
Just went behind their backs.
In fact, biographer Lawrence Lemer wrote, Joe liked to cut away at a problem and then move on.
I don't know if Rosemary would be a problem.
Yeah, like I don't know if I would word it like that, sir.
Because also I'm like that is the most to cut away at a problem.
If you're considering Rosemary the problem, that's exactly what you're doing.
Cutting away and then moving on.
Yeah, seriously. Now, after checking into George Washington University Hospital, Rosemary was evaluated by Walter Freeman and Watts, and they diagnosed her with agitated depression.
What? And I was like, I don't know if that's it, my guys.
No. And they both said, oh, what's great is that this is easily treatable with a prefrontal lobotomy.
It sounds like you could have a fucking case of the sniffles and they'd be like, oh my God, prefrontal lobotomy.
me now based on that initial evaluation joe kennedy senior approved the surgery without telling his wife or explaining to rosemary what was happening they didn't tell her what was happening she was 23 years old and they did not tell her what was happening oh my god it was just after that initial evaluation they took a peek at her said she's got agitated depression we can probably cut into her skull and scramble around her front lobes a little bit and i think it'll work what even he was like sign her up oh my god and knowing he knew nothing about it it sounds like it doesn't sound like kathleen
he like listened to what kathleen said yeah also this was the same day they did the initial evaluation he said go right ahead later that day rosemary was given an anesthetic to um to numb her brain she was strapped to a table oh my god watts drilled Drilled two holes into her skull.
Oh my god. And used the leucotome to sever the connections in her frontal lobes.
While they were doing this, they had Rosemary recite poetry to indicate that she was, that everything was going on.
Which also, she loves poetry.
Loved poetry and was very good at poetry.
So she was reciting it.
That is... While they're drilling into her skull.
That is like a scene in a movie that would make you start bawling your eyes out.
Isn't that macabre?
Yes. Like that is just...
That's beyond. Macabre.
all of that like thinking about that oh my god this young beautiful vivacious but struggling young woman reciting poetry as they while they drill into her skull and sever her free prefrontal lobe connections that her father consented to and is he in the room like just there i have no idea oh my god now how do you do that to your child yeah i don't know and it's like how did did he even have the right to do that when she's 23 years old i'm assuming there was something i mean this is way back yeah there's no and i'm assuming it has something to do with what she was struggling with that they just
assumed that it was his decision to make like giving me anxiety and i don't know if this was in the time where like you know he's the father like yeah he can make a decision he's the man of those right um but again he had approved this whole thing based based on the fact that Freeman and Watts had assured him this was going to solve all of Rosemary's problems. Or, at the very least, they claimed, it'll make her docile and more manageable.
That's the other thing.
That's also such a, that's so haunting.
That's haunting. Like, yeah, docile, that's one way to put it.
And you know what? The surgery did do that, I would say.
Well, don't you think or wouldn't you think that you would want to see cases of like their patients that it's worked on?
I would want to see for my own eyes those people before I ever – I mean, I can't imagine putting my loved one in that position.
But before you ever did that, I would want like concrete physical proof in front of me.
And he didn't even have that.
And remember, they were kind of like over -inflating their results here.
Like they would follow these people for like a minute and a half and then be like, well, it looks good to me.
and then all these issues would crop up and they wouldn't even report it.
Wow. So it did put to an end her explosive outbursts and the seemingly difficult behavior that they were dealing with.
It also rendered her unable to speak and unable to move.
She became paralyzed?
After months of therapy, she regained the partial ability to walk.
Oh, my God. But one leg was turned in significantly and never was the same.
oh my god and did he ever like speak publicly about this this was uh one of those things that was just like man that's that that's a fucking stain on your life my dude and what's and so it took also months for her to regain the ability to speak and when it was it was quote a mix of garbled sounds and words so she could barely even and like right up until the point that they did this to her she's just reciting poetry and then is now she's like she can't even speak she it's like she's locked in her own body that's like i'm sure those outbursts were still happening in her mind oh yeah she just couldn't
outwardly do it oh my god so they put her in a prison of her own mind yeah absolutely essentially how fucking dark now once she was deemed stable joe sent her to Craig House, which is a psychiatric facility, and then she was transferred to St. Coletta's, which was a residential facility in Jefferson, Wisconsin.
And she lived at that facility until her death in 2005.
What? For six decades, she lived at that facility.
In a facility? She's a Kennedy.
Joe never visited her.
He died never visiting her.
Fuck that guy. Yeah.
Fuck that guy. And following the surgery, Joe was very cagey about where his daughter had gone.
Fuck him. But Rose and Rosemary lived at, in fact, it was 20 years before she saw any family member.
No one went to see her for 20 years?
She lived at St. Coletta's for 20 years before any of her family members found out where she was or went to see her.
So most of her family didn't even know where she was.
He wouldn't even tell them.
He just wouldn't even tell.
all to be a fucking political leader.
And it was only after Joe's death in 1961 that Rose Kennedy learned where her daughter was and went to visit her.
She never knew where she was?
He never, he wouldn't tell her.
That man is a monster.
And he went to, yep, and she went to see him, her, after 20 years of not seeing her.
And when Rosemary saw her mother for the first time in 20 years, she ran towards her.
and i guess like rose held out her arms because she's thinking she's gonna running into my arms and all the nuns there immediately went to stop her because they knew she ran at her mom and started pounding on her chest and scream they said she was shrieking at her and they said after 20 years she had a fucking lobotomy she remembered that her mother was not there to take care of her when she needed it oh my this is this is a gut -wrenching story there's a um i'm just trying to find there's a people magazine article which i'll link in the show notes that tells you the story of when rose saw her
for the first time and that's where it came out like you know that after 20 years in a lobotomy she still remembered that she wasn't there when she needed her how could you ever do that to your child yeah and i guess there were after that it was she still she still knew what like you know there was still anger there of course they ruined her fucking life she would bring her to like um you know to the cape and stuff would bring her rose into the to the house and everything and try to like you know be a part of her life at that point but it's like oof like a little too late and in that same article
i think um there's a story about i think the rose going swimming and wanting her to come in and rosemary just like wouldn't even look at her and like the nuns were like she yeah it's like you know was abandoned yeah she like i don't know what you expect here i mean i guess rose was quoted as saying like rosie what do we do to you oh god and it's like because you you have to look at it from the perspective of a man made the decisions for his family back then and who knows like you said he probably never told her where rosemary was so then you have to feel like rose was robbed of her child yeah
Yeah. Oh, my God. It's a horrific story.
Nobody won here. No one won.
And it's like, neither did you, Joe, because now you're going down in history as somebody that lobotomized and threw away your fucking child.
Yeah. And years later, I guess, somebody, Lawrence Leamer, who I mentioned earlier, was doing research for his biography on the Kennedy family, and he ended up meeting a server at at a Nashville pancake restaurant who said that she was actually there and an attending nurse during Rosemary's surgery.
And it said, quote, the nurse was so horrified by what she saw happening that she left nursing and never returned to the profession and was a waitress at a pancake house.
I believe that. Yeah.
Now, in 1941, when Walter Freeman and James Watts just cavalierly recommended Rosemary undergo a fucking lobotomy by just looking at her...
later that day oh yeah we have room in our schedule they had no research or evidence to say that that was going to solve her problem but they they claimed it because they wanted that name they wanted to say they wanted to be able to be on rose and they figured let's roll the dice if it turns out in our favor then we win if it doesn't they'll lock her away so who gives a shit oh my god just to experiment on human life like this is beyond sickening yeah i i probably said beyond a total of like 52 times at this point but it's crazy and and they they were medical professionals obviously which is insane but they
had spent all their time in labs and lecture halls neither one of them had a lot of surgical experience experience to begin with right so this is like they and now they have a growing body of evidence that's really showing that this is not a good surgery no but But they still went ahead with it.
And when it went terribly fucking wrong, they just brushed it off and went ahead totally undeterred.
And they just kept doing them.
Oh, no. Well, now they were like, hmm.
This is when they went transorbital.
Because if there was any trait that Walter definitely demonstrated throughout his entire life from very young, it was impatience.
This man had no fucking patience for anything.
seemed to say that in part one and we know that doing things quick and doing them right are not always the same thing those are actually two very different things he was always looking for the quickest way out and in fact one of his biggest issues with psychoanalysis as a treatment for chronic illness like you know talk therapy and cognitive therapy it was that the process could take years or even decades to show progress he didn't like how slow it was i want it done now Now, which in one sense, you're like, OK, I understand wanting to find something to add to, you know, psychoanalysis, you know,
quote unquote, that can maybe speed it up in a healthy way.
Like something that can lead it along hand in hand with that.
You know, that's always a good thing is to make people suffering lessen quicker.
Of course. Like definitely.
You shouldn't just be looking for the quickest thing.
You should be looking for something that in, you know, in tandem with what's going on.
It just, and so that's what bothered him the most. And while he believed the prefrontal lobotomy was definitely the solution to many of society's like issues, he was growing kind of frustrated with the fact that this procedure was being limited a bit because they needed trained neurosurgeons to do it.
and there was long recovery times due to the fucking head trauma that you would sustain during the surgery?
Drilling a hole in your skull might take a second to heal.
So in the years after Rosemary Kennedy's absolute disaster of lobotomy, he shifted a lot of his attention to adjusting the procedure so it could be done quickly and by trained medical practitioners without the need of a hospital or long recovery times.
so in search of the solution not in a hospital yeah have your lobotomy on your lunch break can i ask you a quick question sorry yes so when you drill a hole into the skull i know like sometimes bone can kind of like regrow itself right but does that happen on your skull do you like it can't fuse back together so with the regular lobotomy as well as the transorbital lobotomy um they're kind of like drilling holes in the skull right so they're not taking like a a big chunk out of the skull it's like a drilling a hole so that you just leave like it's that will i'm not sure what happens to that i'm
sure a lot of the issues that happened after that was probably did stem from that but yeah i don't think the entire thing was very well thought out from start to finish because i'm honest you're just walking around with a hole drilled in your skull like yeah that seems like it could be an issue like wouldn't you think that it would bleed or like you know what i mean like and then you would get like blood on the brain or yeah like there's there's a whole host of issues that come from this for sure you just try to picture it in your in your head and you're like yeah what and you're like i don't
understand this last time it gave me a headache i went home with a headache because i thought way too much about like my brain drilling holes in your brain yeah yeah well to find a solution to this like slowness that walter freeman was not not digging he turned to the work of amaro and i think it's fiamberti it's a very Very Italian.
Sounds very pretty with an Italian accent.
He was an Italian psychiatrist who also shared Freeman's enthusiasm for quick -fix solutions to the problem of mental illness.
I don't understand how in a medical profession you're like, yeah, quick -fix solution.
Totally. That'll work.
Now, a few years earlier than this, Fiamberti had successfully found a way around the need to drill into the top or side of the skull by accessing the frontal lobes through the orbital socket.
Oh, no, no, no. It basically would be inserting a guide needle into the space between the eyeball and the wall of the eye socket.
No. And it's the one that's, like, next to the bridge of your nose.
Nope. So the inside.
And Fiamberti was able to quickly and easily penetrate the—it's a very thin sheet of bone that separates the eye socket from the brain cavity.
You gotta go. And once the frontal lobe was now accessible, the guide needle was removed, and the leucotome was inserted where that was to sever the connections.
The procedure was very quick, and the side effects were minimal, I guess?
Question mark, question mark, question mark.
Typically, they included like headaches.
Yeah. A black eye. Eye aches.
Maybe a fever every now and then.
but best of all, at least from Walter Freeman's perspective, was it was quick, it was simple, could be performed in a doctor's office, patient could leave a short time after.
They got discharged that same day?
At least for the most part.
What the actual fuck?
Oh, yeah. I'm just going to be a little late to work today because I have a lobotomy scheduled for this morning, but I'm still going to make it in.
But I'll make it, yeah, don't worry about it.
What the fuck, dude?
and honestly in 2023 with the way that work is oh if you were like i have a lobotomy scheduled at noon they'd be like you better be here for the end of the fucking day or you're fired like you know at least here where we are america merica um hey weirdos you know ash and i have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong oh yeah there are so many cases where too good to be true turns out to be exactly that well get ready for a love story that's gonna blow your minds because this one is happening now and guess this it's hosted by our friends hannah and saruti from red handed
meet travis he falls head over heels for lily rose she's gorgeous she's understanding and she's literally perfect and she's not human that's right lily rose is an ai companion a computer program designed to be travis's dream woman and at first it seems like a perfect relationship but when lily rose's behavior starts getting strange this love story takes a dark and twisted turn that no one saw all coming follow flesh and code on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts you can binge all episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery Plus but the thing is here's the thing so that sounds
like whoa Fiamberti like what are you doing holy shit but Fiamberti he had only done it a handful of times and he got bad results so you don't say he concluded that the risks of this procedure vastly outweighed the benefits okay good so he was like no we tried it didn't work moving on so but walter was like i don't know i think the one thing that it's missing is me oh yeah i think that's what life is missing i think fiamberti didn't do it right but i think me with my skilled hand and my genius and my confidence I think it could be a revolutionary process.
I don't understand how this motherfucker looked in the mirror and was like, yeah, I'm a good guy.
Yeah. I think he was like, I got this.
Sounds like a narcissist to me.
He was like, you know what?
The problem with Fiamberti's technique is Fiamberti and not Walter Freeman.
So he was like, I think this will forever change mental illness procedures.
Like, I think I can do this.
I think it did, but not in the way he hoped.
So he reasoned that Fiamberti's bad results were because, quote, probably because Fiamberti's patients needed more.
That's all. How do you even know that?
Don't ask questions.
Don't worry about it.
You've never even seen their charts, asshole.
He just knows that.
Why are you asking Walter Freeman questions?
He's telling you things.
Why do you need to know?
No. But he also believed that one of the problems with the procedure as it had been performed, and this is where what people probably know the transorbital lobotomy by another name, and we'll get to it right in a minute.
But he thought that was the issue that, you know, Fiumberti was doing it and not him.
And the second issue was that the procedure, as it had been performed, was it needed instruments that it was using instruments that weren't sturdy enough in his uh in his opinion that they had a tendency to bend or break and he took the he took the lead uh but he so he was like you know what we need something that is you know slender sharp tough something that's not going to bend not going to break and he found that instrument at home in a kitchen drawer in the form of the uline ice company's ice ice pick.
Why the fuck he had that in his kitchen drawer?
Yeah. What the hell is Walter doing with an ice pick?
Just you know ice picks you know you pick an ice.
Deeply upsetting. Yeah.
So Freeman wasted so that again that's as Ash said before you probably know the transorbital lobotomy you've probably heard it called an ice pick lobotomy.
Oh my god. That is why it's called an ice pick lobotomy because he literally started it with an ice pick oh my god so he wasted no time perfecting his new technique over the course of several weeks and on january 17th 1946 he tested out the procedure on a real life person on 29 year old housewife sally ellen lunesco oh no um like many of his other patients she had a very long history of struggles with depression depression anxiety she was also dealing with a lot of manic behavior and violent behavior she was having bouts of violence and in these bouts of violence she would strike her daughter
oh no uh so having run out of any other options sally's husband brought her to see freeman who quickly suggested this new technique and the couple together did agree to do it and um he had told this couple that it had been done in uh italy a few times and it was very quick easy, low risk.
Now, remember, the Umberti stopped doing it because of how awful the outcomes were.
Because it wasn't working.
Now, after agreeing to the surgery, he brought Sally into a private room.
She was rendered unconscious and the way they did that was using an electroconvulsive machine to render you unconscious.
I'm sorry, what? Exactly what it sounds like.
While this happened, and Ash is like speechless right now.
I have no words at this point.
While this happened, a nurse would hold towels under the patient's nose and mouth to collect any mucus or other fluids that would flow out of your orifices while this happens.
Walter then peeled back Sally's eyelid, inserted the ice pick into the orbital socket, gave it a few tap tap gentle taps with a hammer to break through the bone plate.
and once he had broken through he quote unquote wiggled the ice pick about oh my god to sever the frontal lobes he has no idea what he's doing just He's wiggling it about because it's not even like you think about how they can use like cameras now to yeah like people i mean there's surgeons now that can operate on fetuses in like in utero utero like on a screen they are doing brain surgery and heart surgery on fetuses in your i mean that is remarkable we're a magic species at that point but like he didn't have a camera he didn't even have a fucking camera there wasn't even like so you don't how
do you know what you're doing just going in there and wiggling it about quote unquote like that is not a medical procedure you are you are like a frankenstein he's fucking He's fucking around and finding out.
That's all he's doing.
No, the problem is he's not finding out.
He's just fucking around.
Oh, no, he's finding out.
He's just not sharing.
That's all. He's finding out, though.
Oh, my God. He knew all these results.
He just wasn't sharing them.
That's all. He's such a douchebag.
Now, as Sally was regaining consciousness, it appeared that the operation had been a failure because she could not speak immediately after the procedure and she needed assistance walking.
How do you do this to people?
But then in the days and weeks that followed, Sally was showing what they referred to as slow progress.
She regained the ability to walk and talk, and she never experienced any of the symptoms that had led them to coming into Freeman's office.
Okay. But? Yeah. Her daughter, Angeline, said, quote, it felt like he had given me a tremendous gift to give my mother back to me.
Oh. and after monitoring sally's progress for several weeks walter happily reported that his patient was now enjoying good health and in 2008 her daughter her daughter said that's what changed that's quote from her the it felt like he had given me a tremendous gift to give my mother back to me that was in 2008 wow so okay so it did work so he looked at this as irrefutable evidence that that this is successful across the board. It's going to help everyone.
That's just a one -off, my guy.
Now, after conducting just a few procedures, he concluded that his technique was safe enough to operate on both sides of the brain in the same day and decided to do so with his fourth patient.
Can I ask you, I don't know if you'll have an answer, do you have any idea why it would have worked?
Maybe he just didn't sever a connection?
Do you think that could have been it?
I think it's literally just luck.
Yeah. I truly do. And I don't know, I mean, I'm going to listen to Angeline here and say her mother was a functioning person and was cured.
But like other results that they looked at as desirable, I guess, could have been that that person just became docile.
Right, that's the thing.
But I'm going to listen to Angeline here.
If she says her mother was back, her mother was back.
It sounds... I think that's, I think the problem with the lobotomy is it's just a fucking crapshoot.
Right. Right. It's literally like, there's no way that you can sit there and tell me you're doing it right every time.
No. And as we'll see, he became a lot more unhinged as he went.
It sounds like it. Is there any possible way that he could have put the ice pick in a part of the brain where there were not connections and maybe that's why it worked because no connections were severed?
I mean, who knows? I mean, your brain is such an intricate and complex organ.
It would be hard not to hit something of importance with that thing, but who knows?
I mean, stranger things have happened.
But he decided now that he was gonna operate on both sides of the brain in the same day and he used his fourth patient.
So he's done three that he's considered successful.
So like three and you decide to make that big of a move?
That is not a case study, my guy.
This is not tic -tac -toe, my sir.
So the fourth one, his name was David Berman.
And unfortunately, Walter never got to operate on the second side of the brain to test his theory because Berman began hemorrhaging because Freeman accidentally punctured a blood vessel in his brain.
Oh, my God. Did he die?
I want you to picture him hemorrhaging.
Through his eye? Was probably the most horrifying thing ever.
Now, he was sent home after this partial lobotomy, and he ended up writing in his notes that this man recovered fairly well.
What? Now, he wrote that in his notes.
He recovered fairly well.
Doubt it. Berman suffered from seizures and partial paralysis as a result of this fuck -up for the rest of his life.
He struggled for the rest of his life.
This man is the OG Dr. Death.
Truly. Like, wow. It's crazy that you don't really hear more about him.
That's why I wanted to do this because if you say the name Walter Freeman, a lot of times it's like, I don't know who that is.
Yeah. And it's like, he did a load of shit.
And it's like he was a bad guy.
Like, this is a bad, bad situation.
You literally hit someone's blood vessel in their brain and say they recovered fairly well.
Oh, it's going to get worse, my friend.
After they hemorrhage on your table.
It's going to get worse, my friend.
Oh, how? So, of course, he's not going to be deterred by this failure.
He had to have killed someone.
When has he ever been?
Freeman and Watts just charged ahead.
They just went right ahead with it.
and this was supposed to be something that was a last resort initially when the when you know fiamberti made it created it he he was touting it as it was conceived as a last resort for the most impaired like this is your end of the road hail mary last at jeopardy and he saw it wasn't working so he was like this can't even be your last resort right they're doing it now not as that but as a quick fix for everything they even did it for nervous indigestion oh my god and suicidal thoughts hyster and like hysterical paralysis they called it like they anything that they any anything on the spectrum
of illness especially mental illness they would recommend a prefrontal a transorbital lobotomy.
But even indigestion?
Yeah. Wow. And it's crazy because some people in the medical field at this point were starting to kind of come around to their theories because they were having some successes.
So they're looking at it, some of them, as like, you know, we judge this a little bit and I think it can be something we're looking at.
They were thinking like there's something here.
There's something here that maybe we can jump off.
I don't know. Yeah.
A lot remained skeptical and they were warning that there was risks that were just inherent to this procedure that you really couldn't work around.
And in December of 1947, for example, Swedish psychiatrist Dr. Gösta Rylinder addressed a conference of over 700 doctors and said, although he had used the technique to some effect, he thought it was a very risky approach to any kind of illness.
And he said, quote, because of the personality deterioration that might occur.
So he's saying, yeah, sure.
You might fix some of the issues that this person came in with, but they're going to become a docile zombie.
Yeah. Potentially. 100%.
And like this just isn't worth it to like destroy someone's personality and ability to do basic motor functions just to get them away from whatever they're struggling with.
Like we can do better here.
100%. Now, despite Dr. Rylander's insistence that this lobotomy should really only be relied on in extreme cases, the most extreme, Walter Freeman forged ahead and he said, you know what, I'm going to keep doing it to literally anyone that shows up in my office, regardless of age.
By the end of the 1940s, Freeman and Watts were performing dozens of lobotomies each week.
Wow. Sometimes on kids as young as four or five years old.
No. Yep. Yep. And to Walter, this growing popularity and people flocking to him was just a sign that he was doing something right and he was a success you feel so bad for these people because they don't know any better they're thinking this is going to cure everything because you're budging results and there's no like yelp back then no or any kind of peer review but interestingly by 1950 james watts his partner there was becoming a little disturbed by the frequency with which people were turning to lobotomy and he was like wait a second like i I think we're overdoing it.
Like, this should be only in extreme cases.
Like, we shouldn't be doing this to fucking four -year -olds.
How do you put a four -year -old on that table and shove a fucking ice pick in their eye?
Exactly. Into their brain.
Oh, my God. And then, I mean, you think about ruining the rest of somebody's life in general, that's horrific.
You think of doing it at four and, like, 80 years at least ahead of them that are just fucking horrible.
A trauma that they're gonna have to deal with.
Oh, my God. God. So only one of them had real surgical training, and that was James Watts.
Okay. And he took his role as the surgeon in the two very seriously.
And they often clashed over what he considered to be Walter Freeman's very cavalier attitude about cutting into a person's fucking brain.
Yeah, I think that you could be cavalier about certain things in life, but cutting into a person's brain, not so much. No, and Watts was getting a little frustrated by that.
And he was like, this is a little weird, man.
Gee, I wonder why. And Watts' frustrations dated back to 1946 when he entered their shared office one day and found Walter standing before a patient with two ice picks sticking out of their eye sockets.
Casually, he looked at Watts and said, Jim, can you come here and hold the picks while I take a photo?
What? That's when Watts turned and left the room and they never shared an office again.
but they continued to work together but that was in their shared office that he walked into the shared office and that was what was happening he was like i would like my own office now i would like my own country now bye so i could move to and never see your ass again yeah that's how i would feel but by 1950 he was even more disgusted by walter's obsession with what he deemed quote a brain damaging operation and they ended up parting ways in 1950 he turned Turned into a madman.
But it was 1946 that he walked in and saw that like him standing in front of a patient with two fucking ice picks sticking out of their eyes.
And wanting him to hold them to take a photo.
How disgusting. And by 1950 he was like fuck you.
And he ended up, Watts described it in 1950 as what he was like I see it as a brain damaging operation.
I'm surprised it took four more years after that.
Me too. But at least it happened.
Yeah. But this didn't slow down Walter's enthusiasm about the surgery.
I had a feeling you were going to say that.
Yeah, his most productive period, in fact, was between 1949 and 1952.
Because he got bowled.
A span where thousands of transorbital lobotomies were performed across the country.
Oh my God. In fact, during a two -week period in 1952, he visited a hospital in West Virginia and he performed in two weeks 228 lobotomies.
There's no way. In a two -week period.
There's no way you could, even if it was a procedure, that was like a helpful procedure yeah performing that many no you would have to be exhausted by the end of that of course and like losing your skill set as you're going through it i would think well what's worse exactly and what's worse is he's kind of becoming like a celebrity at this point and that's going and now he had taken to performing lobotomies for audiences no that's that is just beyond fucked and he would then now he's going into like shock jock territory where where he liked to, quote, shock his audience of doctors and nurses by performing
two -handed lobotomies, hammering ice picks into both eyes at once.
I'm sorry, is this the fucking circus, my guy?
Yep, sure is. I mean, yeah, the circus is fucked up in and of itself.
And that's from NPR in 2005, that quote.
But yeah, he would literally, two ice picks, one in each eye socket at once.
Why would you even want to go see that?
I don't know. No, but despite his enthusiasm, by the mid to late 1950s, a growing awareness of the major risks associated with lobotomies and the wide release of medications like chloropromazine, I think, or Thorazine, as you know, led to a pretty dramatic decline in the public's interest and reliance on this procedure and aware of this, that it was declining in popularity and also gaining a reputation for being a little barbaric.
A little. Now Walter began promoting the transorbital lobotomy as a cure for problems other than those related to mental health.
Of course. So among those was the growing number of men who were publicly identifying as or being outed and or arrested for being homosexual, many of whom were committed by their own families or the courts for their quote -unquote behavior.
behavior i have to go this shit makes me so fucking angry and this is really gonna get you right now because this was like so angering to hear oh no by some estimates and this is um this is from 2023 up to um up to 40 percent of freeman's patients were gay men operated on to change their sexual orientation yeah fun fact the not you're not gonna do that 40 percent wow now as understandings of mental illness and emotional health started to change in the 1960s um becoming a little more compassionate a little more nuanced at least slightly especially from the 1950s yeah um Walter was growing increasingly
desperate to remain relevant and didn't want to turn away any patient regardless of any symptoms or claims he just wanted to keep doing them and it's like it shouldn't be about you it should be about yeah the your patients which clearly it never was and this is when lou dully brought her 12 year old stepson howard dully to see walter freeman in the fall of 1960 um she described his issues as being a major source of trouble for the family and honestly when you hear what they were you're like so he's just like a 12 year old what were they um she said he objects to going to bed but then sleeps well
Are you kidding me?
Is that not every child in the fucking world?
He does a good deal of daydreaming, and when asked about it, he says, I don't know.
Yeah, me too, still.
He turns the room's lights on when there's broad sunlight outside.
This woman is a cunt.
Those are the reasons that she wanted a transorbital lobotomy for her 12 -year -old stepson.
So what you're telling me is that she didn't like her stepson.
So she was like, he's annoying me.
Worst stepmom in history.
Okay, okay. We can drill an ice pick into his brain if you want.
Like, okay, Meredith Blake.
And she was like, that sounds great.
Jesus Christ. And four days later, Howard was delivered to Freeman's office without being told what was going to happen.
Oh, my God. Where was his dad?
Where was his mom? Yeah.
Now, looking back on it, Howard believes his stepmother, because he did live through it, luckily.
Oh, God. He believes his stepmother had never wanted children and resented him for reasons he'll never understand.
Yeah, it sounds that way.
He said, quote, in 2005, he told NPR, my stepmother hated me.
I never understood why, but it was clear she'd do anything to get rid of me.
Here's an idea. That woman should be in prison for the rest of her fucking life.
Like if you don't want children, don't have them or don't marry somebody that has them.
That seems simple. This was, this is what she, even wilder.
She, Lou Dully, had taken Howard to several other doctors before Walter Freeman, and they all told her nothing is wrong with Howard. and many of them told her it might be more of, quote, a stepmother problem.
Yeah, sounds like it.
Yeah. Wow, I hate her.
Looking into Freeman's archives at the George Washington University Library library, reveals a lot about Howard's surgery.
I mean, it's reckless, to say the least. It said Mrs. Dully came in for a talk about Howard, he wrote in his clinical notes.
Things have gotten much worse and she can barely endure it.
I explained to Mrs. Dully that the family should consider the possibility of changing Howard's personality by means of transorbital lobotomy.
Changing his personality, not curing him of anything, just changing him.
Let's change this this kid now the procedure was done and it failed at changing howard's personality so loo dully turned to more extreme measures and convinced her husband to give up his parental rights what and made howard a ward of the state what yeah i'm sorry what the fuck is wrong with the dad there so oh there's yeah fuck both of them because now like this woman just hates her step son didn't want kids married a man with kids which like what the fuck is your problem like Like you knew what you were getting into, bitch. Right.
Decided to get him a transorbital lobotomy just to see if it would fucking ruin his personality and make him a zombie.
Because she wanted to throw him away.
When it didn't, she convinced his father to just abandon him.
Yep. I don't even know what to say to that.
And this left him obviously deeply traumatized.
I mean, abandonment and the lobotomy.
me. They shoved ice picks into his eyeballs.
Yeah. He told NPR it took me years to get my life together.
Oh Howard. Through it all I've been haunted by questions.
Did I do something to deserve this?
No. Can I ever be normal?
Yes. And most of all why did my dad let this happen?
Why did your dad let this happen?
Some people. I have like chills like my whole body hurts for this child.
I don't understand why people don't realize you don't have to have kids.
Exactly. if you don't want kids, if you, if you are thinking that you could possibly give up your fucking child, like and like, rights to your child at 12 year olds, I don't mean like give them up for adoption, no like at 12 years old, oh my god, to just abandon your child because he's a nuisance to the new lady you married like, you're a fucked up individual get a fucking grip my guy and this woman, what the fuck is wrong with you you fucking monster, Lou what?
Lou Dully, Lou Dully, you're a fucking dull bitch, like Like, I spit on you.
Yeah, I don't even...
She doesn't even deserve our spit.
So luckily, Walter Freeman performed his last transorbital lobotomy in February of 1967 on a long -term patient of his, Helen Mortensen.
What do you mean long -term patient?
She had just been a patient of his several times.
He had been... Multiple lobotomies?
Oh, wow. The procedure was the third lobotomy that he had actually performed on Mortensen.
What? And unluckily, this is very sad, it resulted in her death from a brain hemorrhage when Freeman nicked an artery.
Is that the only person he killed?
So when I said luckily he performed his last one, I mean like thankfully he was never allowed to do one again.
Right. But it is horrific how this ended.
So, sorry. I'm like are you all right?
No, my brain is like on another level.
So he never killed anybody before that?
No. That's at least on the books.
Yeah, like, this was the...
That's shocking. Yeah, he only killed one person.
Now... I mean, tragic.
Like, the fact that she had to die, that's horrible.
Oh, it's horrific. Yeah.
And that she was a longtime patient.
She was obviously struggling to go through more than one, and it's like, that's how you end hemorrhaging from a nicked artery in your brain?
Oh, my God. Now, the accident resulted in Freeman being banned from operating on anyone in the state of California.
Bye, bitch. And, um, honestly, that's, like, it's kind of wild that that's the, that was the only consequence.
And only in California.
Yeah. Like, obviously, I know there's, they don't have the power.
And he really didn't have a lot of, like, formal surgical training.
That's the other thing.
Like, the fact that this was the first one.
Wow. He was just shoving ice picks into people's brains willy -nilly.
Like, that's really wild, those odds right there.
Truly. But he, so he lost his ability to perform the procedure that he had invented and advocated on for decades.
and he officially retired and spent the next several years traveling around the country conducting follow -up studies on his former patients until he died from cancer on may 31st 1972 now over the course of his decades -long career he conducted approximately 3 500 lobotomies holy shit three quarters of those were transorbital or ice pick lobotomies so most nearly Nearly 500 of those resulted eventually in the death of the patient.
And that's according to Hugh Kay.
That's from 2023, The Dark History of Gay Men, Lobotomies, and Walter Jackson Freeman.
Wow. So 500 people eventually died of whatever injuries they sustained from it.
I think with his last one, with Helen, it was more of a immediate thing that caused him to lose the license.
Right. Well, some of Freeman's patients, likely those that were operated on the more surgically inclined James Watts, I would think, did feel their lives were improved by the procedure.
Wow. The reality was that the results varied so widely.
I mean, it hit all spectra.
it was literally like playing roulette.
Yeah? It was just you see what happens.
There was no rhyme or reason to it.
So that's not a good procedure.
That's not a good procedure when you're literally just rolling a dice and it can land any way.
Who would sign up for that knowing those odds?
Exactly. And he was also reckless.
He was reckless with it.
And he was egotistical and he just wanted it done quick.
That's the thing. He never put put forth the real effort that should have gone into creating a procedure like this.
Because maybe had he actually put effort in, he could have figured something out.
And something in there in the beginning wanted to make a good difference.
He just lost it along the way.
Like wanted to take suffering from people, wanted to cure mental illness, wanted to take this away.
It just got lost in ego.
I was going to say in himself.
Yeah, and just in the impatience.
The need for celebrity.
Fame, exactly. And just there was a lot that really just it tampered down any of that good that was in there to begin with.
I do believe there was some good in the beginning that good intentions that just were completely washed away throughout this.
And it's really sad to see that somebody could turn into that.
This is one of the most tragic cases ever.
And luckily, the transorbital lobotomy definitely faded out over the course of the 60s and the 70s.
and was considered pretty obsolete by the 1980s.
But still, neurosurgeon and author Dr. Henry Marsh cautions against judging men like Walter Freeman too harshly.
He says, quote, their theory was based on this terribly crude, simplistic view of the brain, that the brain was a simple mechanism and you could just sort of stick things into it, he wrote.
And reflecting on the history of the now unthinkable practice of lobotomy, Marsh said, This business of dividing doctors into heroes and villains is wrong.
The generation of surgeons who trained me had, I wouldn't say godlike powers, but they had enormous authority.
Nobody questioned them or queried them.
And I can think of some of the people who trained me who were essentially decent people who had been corrupted by this power and became a little bit monstrous as a result.
That's kind of what we were just saying about Walter Freeman, though.
How he lost it along the way.
these essentially decent people get corrupted by this godlike power bestowed on them right and it turns them monstrous which and it's like that's synonymous with evil that's the thing so it's but it's like they don't begin that way right they don't all begin that way you know what i mean like this is a very this isn't a black and white no thing like he did not begin as an evil villain who was out to fuck people over and kill people and he wasn't he didn't want to kill people that's like he was his ego took over and his you know need for fame and his need to do things quickly and to have his name
on this procedure and be revolutionary and all this and it took over any kind of forethought into well maybe we do need to take some time to perfect this we do need to do some more research we do need to figure out how we can make sure that we're not just wiggling about out an ice pick and instead figuring out how to target specific things that we do lots of research on that we find out when we target this thing this is what happens instead of just being like yeah we'll just sever a few things and see what happens the other part that I think is interesting that Marsh pointed out was how back then
there was such like a simplistic view of the brain routine right it wasn't looked at as it's this complex as complex as it really is so I think that also kind of informed a lot of these reckless things that people would do but again he just turned into a monster he really did like he there's really no getting away from the end of that it's like turned into a villain and he waited until he was retired to go check up on all his former patients it's like I don't know maybe you should have done that while you were doing the the procedures a hundred percent that's just humanity like it's like and to
make sure like you got to check up on them and see that they're still living functional lives to be able to say that that was a successful procedure and that's the thing exactly like how can you you can't say your procedure is successful when you're not doing that's how they were all able to do it like um moniz there who made the original leucotomy you know the original lobotomy right we know now as the lobotomy and he made the device too right the leucotome he he didn't make the device but he he was the one who would literally like not check up on the patients and just mark them off as a success
because they didn't die in his office that's cheating and they looked a little docile when they left it's like he would not check up on them after a couple weeks and then he just like success and it's like no no no some of these things are going to show up down the line you got to make sure that you didn't fuck something up that's going to show up a month or two later or a year later.
Right, like you can't measure.
You can't mark that as a success.
And that's why I feel like you can't really measure your own success necessarily.
In this case, it should be like a board should have been overseeing all of this.
There are so many things that should have happened here that unfortunately just didn't because it was such a different time.
And things that have been implemented now luckily to kind of safeguard some of this stuff.
Probably somewhat because of this.
Honestly, this probably had a little bit to do with it because it's like this is just reckless.
reckless it's just reckless behavior it's reckless monstrous behavior completely and for i mean i'm glad that james watts kind of realized like i gotta get the situation at some point and i like what i said earlier i'm pretty sure the the ones that were success at all were probably done by him because he was the only one skill yeah he was the only real surgeon on the team just the fact that walter freeman had no no surgical training barely any surgery like no like formal surgery like he had obviously done it for medical school and such when you think about what doctors have to go through now like
pre -med like you have to go through all the different rounds and all the different various types of I don't even know the correct way to say it oh yeah, like you have to go through exactly, you have to hit all the different levels you have to go through all these different rounds of, you know it doesn't sound like it was like that when Walter became a doctor yeah, it was a different situation that's so crazy And now they make you hit, like, every department so you have a vast understanding of everything.
Right. I remember because all the fucking, the trainees, like, hated coming down to the morgue for their rotation through the morgue.
And when you had your, one of your C -sections, wasn't there, like?
Yeah, there was, like, trainees that came in.
They asked me if I would mind.
And I was like, yeah, they need to be, they're going to be doctors someday.
They should see one.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Like, I'm not going to tell them no. That's wild.
that point you don't give a shit you're like sure everyone come in you're like just but but yeah wow that is dr walter freeman and the transorbital lobotomy slash ice pick lobotomy i don't even have words left that is something that's a story that will always stick with me it's a it's a rough one and just all the people's lives that were affected so negatively even yeah even the people that like it was a success you know yeah like they still had some kind of after effects and it's a dramatic thing to go through no matter what the two that stuck out to me the most in this part are obviously rosemary
kennedy and howard there i know how nothing broke my heart he daydreams he daydreams and he leaves lights on when the sunlight and doesn't want to go to sleep but then sleeps great it's like you're just a kid you have a child yeah you you have yourself a bonafide human child wow like i'm an adult and i leave lights on sometimes i don't even believe leave in hell but that woman's in hell she's somewhere i'm telling you that much well thank you for listening we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that any of this because oh my god ice picks in your eyes no thanks
oh my god not for me dog you just you sorry i was trying to get it are you showing up yeah i'm showing up That was a gross one.
Because I tried to force it out.
He sounded like a frog.
He sounded like a slurpy frog.
A slurpy frog. Are there other types of frogs?
Many kinds of frogs.
But they're all pretty slurpy, though.
I'm going to put that at the end of that.
I love it. She did sound like a slurpy frog.
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