The name is absent

The Brain and Behavior        71

were reported at the Second International Neurological Con-
gress in 1935 (Fulton & Jacobsen, 1935), they made a signifi-
cant impression on Egas Moniz, a Portugese neurosurgeon,
who felt that such an operation might be helpful for psy-
chiatric patients. As a result Moniz (1936) developed the
frontal lobotomy, a surgical procedure which involved sever-
ing the nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes with the
hypothalamus and other subcortical centers (cf. Fulton, 1951,
pp. 98-100; Freeman & Watts, 1950, pp. xvi-xvii).

The theoretical considerations which Moniz advanced to
justify this operation have been described as follows: “In the
course of daily life . . . the human individual responds to var-
ious external happenings but in a very flexible manner. Cer-
tain happenings, however, serve to elicit responses that tend
to become stereotyped, conditioned and thus indicate a
certain stabilization of synaptic patterns in the nervous sys-
tem. The stereotyped patterns of behavior on the part of
mental patients seem to result from such stabilization, and
shock methods are designed to break them up by forcible dis-
ruption of the synaptic connections. Prefrontal lobotomy has
the same effect. By disrupting the stabilized synaptic pat-
terns it abolishes the abnormal conditioned responses and re-
stores the patient to a more flexible type of behavior” (Free-
man & Watts, 1950, pp. 540-541).

Since 1935 when frontal lobotomies were first systemati-
cally performed for psychiatric purposes, tens of thousands
of patients have been treated by that procedure or by varia-
tions which involved removing different amounts of frontal
tissue from different locations (cf., e.g., Mettler, 1949; Free-
man & Watts, 1950; Fulton, 1951; Greenblatt & Solomon,
1953). Moniz (1936) reported that an impressive number of
his patients showed dramatic emotional changes: elimination
of depression, relief from anxiety. With the increased use of

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