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rleewicks's review
3.0
What a fantastic and interesting account of a man's life. The one thing that I would say that caused me to rate this three stars instead of five is that the book was quite long. While I enjoy reading all of the history that was contained herein, the length of some of the stories caused me to occasionally lose interest.
grandmastatus's review
dark
informative
medium-paced
5.0
It was well -written and researched. Many tidbits of interesting information about those living at the same time as Freeman, as well as thoroughly de-mystifying the ice pick lobotomist.
candelibri's review
dark
informative
slow-paced
1.25
This is…a concerning portrait of a monster. Freeman is portrayed here as a visionary in neurology, doing what others wouldn’t when it came to lobotomies. This author showcases a strong bias in favor of a man who didn’t even have a medical license and practiced some of the most desperately dangerous procedures for his own edification. Just slapping in some fun family roadtrips doesn’t humanize him. Very concerning biography.
rskennedy1066's review
3.0
A good overview of the social and medical climate in which Freeman worked. The narrative was occasionally scattered--too many anecdotal interruptions--and could be difficult to follow.
ashfromthetrash's review
2.0
so many bad things to say about this book... yes it was interesting, yes the life of freeman is fascinating. is it fun to try and get into his head, imagine his reasoning? yes. is it acceptable to go so far in "getting in his head" that you excuse his actions and border on idolizing him as an idealistic hero? i can't get behind it.
el-hai omitted so many details from freeman's life in order to cherry pick stories that showed him as a progressive go-getter rather than a non-licensed man performing assembly-line surgeries with an ice pick. i cannot express enough how much i dislike freeman, and the fact that el-hai didn't provide an objective view of the horrific medical damage he did baffled me.
el-hai omitted so many details from freeman's life in order to cherry pick stories that showed him as a progressive go-getter rather than a non-licensed man performing assembly-line surgeries with an ice pick. i cannot express enough how much i dislike freeman, and the fact that el-hai didn't provide an objective view of the horrific medical damage he did baffled me.
raven_morgan's review
4.0
Fascinating biography of Freeman and his campaign to make lobotomy a common practice for the cure of mental illness, especially mood disorders.
Reading this, it's kind of horrifying to think that Freeman's transorbital lobotomy was such a common practice - especially given that he didn't always work in aseptic conditions, and didn't hesitate to lobotomise young children, or to lobotomise some patients two or three times. Especially given that there was so little actual evidence that it did anything at all. He claimed that his patients were mostly helped, and you have to admire how much he tried to follow up with them, but there was little actual data on the befores and afters (except Freeman's portraits).
This left me with the possible idea that maybe Freeman was as il as some of his patients. He was certainly an obsessive, and the level of showmanship he incorporated into his displays just boggles the mind.
I do wonder what a world would be like where psychiatric drugs didn't come into common use, though, since it was their rise, in part, that led to the downfall of lobotomy.
Reading this, it's kind of horrifying to think that Freeman's transorbital lobotomy was such a common practice - especially given that he didn't always work in aseptic conditions, and didn't hesitate to lobotomise young children, or to lobotomise some patients two or three times. Especially given that there was so little actual evidence that it did anything at all. He claimed that his patients were mostly helped, and you have to admire how much he tried to follow up with them, but there was little actual data on the befores and afters (except Freeman's portraits).
This left me with the possible idea that maybe Freeman was as il as some of his patients. He was certainly an obsessive, and the level of showmanship he incorporated into his displays just boggles the mind.
I do wonder what a world would be like where psychiatric drugs didn't come into common use, though, since it was their rise, in part, that led to the downfall of lobotomy.
mcc's review against another edition
informative
Oh boy, I can't/won't rate this book as I'll find it too difficult for me to separate the book from the content. I picked up this book because I really wanted to learn more about this man that I view with revulsion. It's always good to remember that these people never consider themselves monsters and truly believe that they are helping people. And yes, the crazy thing is that given the context of the time and the treatments and outcomes for people with mental health issues at the time, you can definitely see how making someone 'docile' enough to live at home with their family instead of getting shipped off to a mental institution can be considered a mercy.
However, given all the insights into this man, which were a *lot* because he was very self-important so documented his life fully as he was convinced basically until he died that he should go down with all the Nobel prize winners as a 'great' of his field. And therein lies this issue. He is a man who got into medecine not based on his desire to want to help people, but on seeing the prestige it gave his grandfather and was always chasing that prestige. When he started the scientific method was not in effect so his methods of taking sad 'before' photos and then happier looking 'after' photos seemed like a very legit 'evidence' gathering at that time. But then as more rigorous and scientific methods of data comparison came into fashion he resolutely refused to adapt because his ego simply could not accept what the data started to show. He increasingly dug his heels in more and more.
The only thing that softened my heart to him a bit was his feverish insistence on following up with his patients (although clearly this was again driven by his own ego's need to find support for his world-view where he was a brilliant man who improved so many people's lives). He tracked them until the end of their or his lives and started doing regular road trips to visit and follow-up with them and kept up many letter correspondences. It's so sad to see him desperately trying to convince himself of the good he did and that one sad little man's ego can do SO much unchecked damage in this world to countless other individuals and families (the majority) of the other cases where his intervention left a path of destruction.
However, given all the insights into this man, which were a *lot* because he was very self-important so documented his life fully as he was convinced basically until he died that he should go down with all the Nobel prize winners as a 'great' of his field. And therein lies this issue. He is a man who got into medecine not based on his desire to want to help people, but on seeing the prestige it gave his grandfather and was always chasing that prestige. When he started the scientific method was not in effect so his methods of taking sad 'before' photos and then happier looking 'after' photos seemed like a very legit 'evidence' gathering at that time. But then as more rigorous and scientific methods of data comparison came into fashion he resolutely refused to adapt because his ego simply could not accept what the data started to show. He increasingly dug his heels in more and more.
The only thing that softened my heart to him a bit was his feverish insistence on following up with his patients (although clearly this was again driven by his own ego's need to find support for his world-view where he was a brilliant man who improved so many people's lives). He tracked them until the end of their or his lives and started doing regular road trips to visit and follow-up with them and kept up many letter correspondences. It's so sad to see him desperately trying to convince himself of the good he did and that one sad little man's ego can do SO much unchecked damage in this world to countless other individuals and families (the majority) of the other cases where his intervention left a path of destruction.