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商品の説明
内容説明
The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman’s documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius.
The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Although many patients did not benefit from the thousands of lobotomies Freeman performed, others believed their lobotomies changed them for the better. Drawing on a rich collection of documents Freeman left behind and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look into the life of this complex scientific genius and traces the physician's fascinating life and work.
From Publishers Weekly
Set against the backdrop of changing attitudes toward mental illness in the 20th century, El-Hai's scholarly biography of Dr. Walter Freeman is a moving portrait of failed greatness. Born to a distinguished family of physicians, he rose to become one of the most celebrated doctors of his generation. Best known as the doctor responsible for the widespread adoption of lobotomy in America after WWII, he also made signal contributions to the science of medicine through his career-long involvement with George Washington University Medical School and St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. Yet, despite his achievements, the procedure he helped develop and tirelessly champion would ultimately become his undoing. As physicians sought other, less drastic means to treat mental illness, Freeman's unorthodox methods, which often included an ice pick and carpenter's hammer, came to seem barbaric. When he died in 1972, the sharply negative view of psychosurgery expressed in books like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) had become commonplace; a mere decade later, movies like Frances (1982) would openly portray lobotomy as institutionalized torture. Although the title of El-Hai's biography might suggest otherwise, he eschews such lurid oversimplifications and portrays Freeman in all his human complexity. To this end, he chronicles Freeman's crusade to help millions of asylum patients who might otherwise remain incarcerated indefinitely; his indefatigable postoperative commitment to his patients; and his flamboyant personality and macabre sense of humor in and out of the operating room. El-Hai's book succeeds as both an empathetic, nuanced portrait of one of America's most complex public figures and as a record of the cultural shifts that have occurred in the treatment of mental illness over the last century.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --このテキストは、 ハードカバー 版に関連付けられています。
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --このテキストは、 ハードカバー 版に関連付けられています。
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カスタマーレビュー
Amazon.com で最も参考になったカスタマーレビュー (beta)
Amazon.com:
27件のカスタマーレビュー
28 人中、24人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
A fascinating and horrifyingly true bit of medical history
2005/8/8
形式:ハードカバー|Amazonが確認した購入
Walter Freeman almost singl-handedly created the craze for psychosurgery that was in vogue from the late 1930s until the
mid 1960s. This was a time when "psychosurgery" meant "lobotomy". While lobotomies were invented by Egas Moniz it was Freeman who advanced the research and tirelessly publicised it as the solution to almost all psychological ills.
It would be all too easy for an author to write Freeman off as an uncaring villain of the first order, a Josef Mengele like figure who mutilated the brains of his victims/patients in an attempt to make them conform to societal norms by amputating their personalities. However Jack El Hai presents Freeman as a man desperate to improve the lives of his patients, a self-promoting man, but nonetheless someone who cared. It is this portrayal by El Hai that makes Freeman an even more horrible character. When El Hai describes how Freeman almost obsessively kept in touch with his patients you have to contrast this caring image with that of Freeman performing lobotomies in his office with an ice-pick and then sending the patients home in a taxi. Freeman doesn't come off as a two-dimensional monster, instead he is revealed to be an all to real three-dimensional, deeply and desperately flawed man.
El Hai avoids scrutinizing larger questions such as to what degree lobotomy was used as an instrument of societal control of troublesome individuals, but others have speeculated on that question, instead he provides new englightenment on that issue by examining Walter Freeman and his times.
mid 1960s. This was a time when "psychosurgery" meant "lobotomy". While lobotomies were invented by Egas Moniz it was Freeman who advanced the research and tirelessly publicised it as the solution to almost all psychological ills.
It would be all too easy for an author to write Freeman off as an uncaring villain of the first order, a Josef Mengele like figure who mutilated the brains of his victims/patients in an attempt to make them conform to societal norms by amputating their personalities. However Jack El Hai presents Freeman as a man desperate to improve the lives of his patients, a self-promoting man, but nonetheless someone who cared. It is this portrayal by El Hai that makes Freeman an even more horrible character. When El Hai describes how Freeman almost obsessively kept in touch with his patients you have to contrast this caring image with that of Freeman performing lobotomies in his office with an ice-pick and then sending the patients home in a taxi. Freeman doesn't come off as a two-dimensional monster, instead he is revealed to be an all to real three-dimensional, deeply and desperately flawed man.
El Hai avoids scrutinizing larger questions such as to what degree lobotomy was used as an instrument of societal control of troublesome individuals, but others have speeculated on that question, instead he provides new englightenment on that issue by examining Walter Freeman and his times.
12 人中、11人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
The mind of a Lobotomist
2005/3/9
形式:ハードカバー
Jack El-Hai takes us into the mind of one of America's most complex medical personalities. The Lobotomist explores the life and work of Dr. Walter Freeman who performed thousands of "ice-pick lobotomies" during the 40s and 50s as a way to treat mental illness. Some saw Freeman as a savior with a miracle cure, others saw him as a cold-blooded egomaniac... Jack El-Hai presents him as a tragic and complex soul by giving us an intimate look into his life and career. A brilliant read...especially because it provides such a vivid snapshot of a terrible chapter in medical history!
16 人中、14人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
More Than a Biography
2005/3/15
形式:ハードカバー
I'm not usually a fan of biographies, but I was persuaded to read this one because a friend who's well aware of my preference for fiction recommended it as "just a great story." And that it is. Dr. Walter Freeman, the godfather of the lobotomy, is as intriguing a character as any of the noble but flawed doctor/scientist heroes of classical literature. Driven by ambition and a desire to accomplish great things for humanity, as well as for himself, he scaled the heights of his profession only to be brought low by arrogance and pride.
Jack El-Hai tells Freeman's story with fairness, grace and a novelist's understanding of character and human frailty. I recommend this fine book not only to readers interested in the subject but to anyone who enjoys, as my friend suggested, "a great story."
Jack El-Hai tells Freeman's story with fairness, grace and a novelist's understanding of character and human frailty. I recommend this fine book not only to readers interested in the subject but to anyone who enjoys, as my friend suggested, "a great story."
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