The Lobotomist by Jack El-Hai
Praise for The Lobotomist "Written with such clarity and engaging detail that a reader has difficulty in putting it down. " --The New York Review of Books "One of the many virtues of El-Hai's text is the rich detail he provides about Freeman's life and ideas. " --Los Angeles Times "Fascinating...
Walter Freeman believed that "the despair of psychiatric illness demanded a decisive, drastic remedy" And that remedy was lobotomy, "cutting the neural connections in the prefrontal regions of the brain," a practice that these days, writes Jack El-Hai in The Lobotomist, "seems so obviously wrong." Freeman performed nearly 3,500 lobotomies and "aside from the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele . . . ranks as the most scorned physician of the twentieth century." And yet, "many of the era's most important medical figures . . . lent support to Freeman's work." Nor did he intend to cause harm. "I had to recognize," writes El-Hai, "the persuasive evidence that at times he acted in the best interests of his lobotomy patients, given the limitation of the medical environment in which he worked and the perilous nature of scientific innovation." (Washington Post Book World, March 18, 2007)
JACK EL-HAI is the President of the American Society of Journalists and a contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post Magazine, American Heritage, and other publications. He is a past winner of the Minnesota Book Award and the June Roth Memorial Award for Medical Journalism.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780470098301 |
| ISBN 10 | 0470098309 |
| Title | The Lobotomist |
| Author | Jack El-Hai |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | John Wiley & Sons Inc |
| Year published | 2007-03-02 |
| Number of pages | 368 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |