True Crime Friday: Walter Freeman II, the Lobotomy Serial Killer
Walter Freeman II was a neurologist who popularized transorbital lobotomy in the 1940s and 1950. Walter Freeman performed over four thousand lobotomies. He is most famous for the lobotomy performed on Rosemary Kennedy. During his time practicing medicine, he was considered a pioneer of practice. He is now considered a serial killer because those lobotomies made people zombies, he butchered them, incapacitated some and he killed a great number of patients. He performed or supervised thousands of lobotomies, often traveling across the United States in a van he called the Lobotimobile. Walter Freeman is now considered a serial killer to the medical community and to society.
Freeman was also co-founder and president of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology from 1946-1947. He also was a contributor and member of the American Psychiatry Association. Walter Freeman II died of complications arising from an operation for cancer on May 31, 1972. Freeman survived by four sons. The oldest became a professor of neurobiology at the University of California at Berkeley. Walter Freeman, II will forever be known as a serial killer.
The Early Childhood of Walter Freeman, II
Walter J. Freeman was born on November 14, 1895. He lived with this parents and grandfather William Williams Keen a well-known surgeon in the Civil War. His father was also a very successful doctor. Freeman attended Yale University where he graduated. He then enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania studying neurology. Working at the hospital and witnessing the pain and distress suffered by the patients encouraged him to continue his education in the field. Freeman earned his PhD in Neuropathology and secured a position at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., as head of the neurology department.The Partnership with Walter Freeman, II
Dr. James Watts ended his partnership because he was disgusted by Freeman's modification of the lobotomy from a surgical operation into a simple outpatient procedure. Watts felt that Freeman using an ice pick was disgusting and barbaric.Rosemary Kennedy
Rosemary Kennedy’s lifelong difficulties stemmed from two distinct events: a birth trauma that caused mild intellectual disability, followed years later by a botched prefrontal lobotomy that caused severe, permanent incapacitation. Her father elected to have this surgery done because women/girls in those days did not have rights to their own bodies and decisions could be made by their husbands, fathers or a male relative. He felt her behavior would be an embarrassment to the family name, so he consulted Dr. Freeman for assistance. Americans began to wonder what had happen to Rosemary because she faded from public life. It was discovered that she was institutionalized after having the surgery. That is when the public and the medical community began to ostracize lobotomies.The Victims of Walter Freeman, II
- Rosemary Kennedy
- Alice Hood Hammatt
- Sallie Ellen Ionesco
- Howard Dully
- Helen Mortensen
The Unknown Victims of Walter Freeman, II
- At least four thousand patients/victims.
Lady Justice
Lobotomies are no longer performed in America or the world because they are labeled one of the most barbaric mistakes of modern medicine. Freeman consulted with other physicians across the world teaching them how to perform the procedures. He visited mental institutions performing these procedures on patients that complained about depression and mood swings. He attended events designed to spread the ideas of lobotomies.Freeman was also co-founder and president of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology from 1946-1947. He also was a contributor and member of the American Psychiatry Association. Walter Freeman II died of complications arising from an operation for cancer on May 31, 1972. Freeman survived by four sons. The oldest became a professor of neurobiology at the University of California at Berkeley. Walter Freeman, II will forever be known as a serial killer.
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