Although much work has been done on children, in India, and Japan, they have not been considered prime subjects here until recently. Lindstrom, who has used ultrasonics on at least on at least 45 patients over the last 12 years, has operated on children as young as eleven. Freeman, working with Dr. J.W. Williams, has performed lobotomies on children from 4-14 and advocates its use in early stages of schizophrenia. IN a case some years ago, writing with Dr. James Watts, he reported having operated on a girl who tore her clothes to shreds. After the operation, her mother was delighted. “It is a pleasure to dress her now because she does not tear her clothes or show any sign of being destructive in any way.” Unfortunately, the doctors report, she “talked very little and was making no progress in helping in the home.”
A current rationale for operating on children has been provided by Drs. Orlando J. Andy and Marion F. Jurko of the University of Mississippi, Jackson. They report doing psychosurgery on 30 to 40 people, mostly children, for symptoms of “hyperactivity, aggression, or emotional instability.” Using a grant from the National Institute of Health in some of their work, the doctors operated on dull-normal to above average institutionalized children aged five to 12 who had tremors, twitches and abnormal body movements, were explosive and impulsive. After surgery, they reported reduced tension. But what this means is shown in the case of a nine-year old, described as destructive and sadistic. After a bilateral mutilation of the thalamus, repeated after nine months, the patient seemed improved. A year later, symptoms of hyperirritability, aggressiveness, negativism and combativeness reappeared, so they mutilated the fornix. This resulted in memory loss. After a fourth operation, they reported “intellectually… the patient is deteriorating.”
Criminals next
A final candidate for the lobotomist’s knife is the criminal. Dr. Jack Lighthill of Santa Monica, a leading advocate, sees a bright future in operating on criminals, especially those who are young and intelligent, Breggin wrote. Actually, Lighthill is probably in the wrong part of California because according to the Washington Post February 25, three inmates at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville were operated on in 1968, supposedly with their consent — given in “more lucid moments.”
The operation involved destruction of their amygdalas by sterotaxic surgery and were performed by Air Force Dr. Warren Overton, supervised by Dr. Robert Heimberger, a neurosurgeon at the Indiana University Medical Center. After the operation, one inmate showed marked improvement and was released on parole. Later, however, he was convicted of robbery. Another showed some improvement, but he eventually suffered memory losses lasting as long as three days. He said he had headaches, numbness and loss of feeling in his limbs. The report doesn’t mention the third prisoner who showed no change after surgery.
The Vacaville facility was constructed to deal with “incorrigibles” such as the Soledad Brothers. California Corrections Director R.K. Procumier, in a letter to the California Council on Criminal Justice, wrote, “The problem of the aggressive, destructive inmate has long been a problem has become particularly acute in the California Department of Corrections Institutions. This letter of intent is to alert you to the development of a proposal to seek funding for a program for the violent inmate…” Fortunately for those incarcerated in California, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration denied the request for $36,000, but Dr. Lawrence Bennett, the prison system’s research director, has said it is only a postponement.
