.MEDICINE’S GOLDEN DECADE ....
* Mental Cases Co Under The Knife
^Doctors Try Shock and Surgery To Treat
Disorders Of The Brain
By SCHUYLER ALLMAN—</P) Features Writer
_ n
FOURTH OF A SERIES
§ —
Dr. Egas Moniz of Paris drew
his surgical line high on the fore
head of the patient and cut boldly
into the skull.
He sent his knife deftly probing
Into the cortex of the brain to
^ sever some of the nerve fibers of
• the prefrontal lobes.
Dr. Moniz was not repairing the
damage of a brain injury. He was
operating in an effort to relieve
the patient of a psychosis.
Surprisingly, there was little
v shock, and few complications. In
his report of 1936 on this sort of
opeartion, Dr. Moniz said patients
showed remarkable improvement
within a short time.
Dr. Moniz was met with skep
ticism at first, and a lot of oppo
sition, for here was a seemingly
radical approach to one of medi
cine’s most baffling problems—the
I treatment of the mentally ill.
But by shock and by surgery
the work went on and in 1942 two
American neurologists brought in
a favorable report on the latter.
They were Dr. Walter Freeman,
professor of neurology, and Dr.
James W. Watts, associate profes
sor of neurosurgery at George
Washington university.
Patients Go Back To Work
Results were good in 98 out of
FREEMAN: Psychosurgeon.
136 operations, they said, and fair
in 23 others.
“Enough patients now have
been returned to their homes able
to work who previously had to be
confined to institutions to make
us optimistic about eventual re
sults,” they wrote.
Results, however, were disap
pointing in schizophrenia, a com
mon and severe mental disorder,
and the doctors admitted that
even in the successes the patients
SERVICE CLEANERS
4th and B Streets—Opposite School House
QUALITY DRY CLEANING A SPECIALTY
.Mr. and Mrs. Carl Mickleson, Props.
Prompt and Courteous Service
RED It
U. S. No. 1
MATANUSKA PRODUCE
will be available in
NOME
During the Balance of the Season
Also
FRESH MILK
Will be available at Your Grocers
3 Times Each Week
MATANUSKA VALLEY
FARMERS COOPERATING ASSN
lost something in the operation.
The recovered patient is apt to
be tactless, hasty, laughs more and
flares up frequently.
But brooding patients cease to
brood, those with obsessions lose
them or no longer let themselves
be plagued by them, hallucina
tions chase themselves away and
homicidal tendencies subside.
Dr. Freeman and Dr. Watts
warned that the operation could
not be performed on those with
aggressive, psychopathic, criminal i
or alcoholic traits because their
behavior af.erward would be in
tolerable.
Shock Plagued By Relapses
A lot of the success with which
shock treatment appeared to be
flushed when it first came into
vogue faded when the final re
turns come in with reports of re
lapses.
In shock therapy, patients are
thrown into momentary uncon
sciousness by potent doses of in
sulin, metrazol or electricity.
These methods also have little
effect on schizophrenia beyond a
temporary improvement, but they
have proved valuable aids to the
psychiatrist in treating othe*
forms of mental illnesses.
In recent years, some hospital*
have abandoned insulin shock for
electric shock, since the latter i*
easier to give and control and has
the same effect.
Both shock and surgery are
drastic, both have been dogged
with failure, but both hold prom
ise for the future in psychiatry.
'Next: Science Finds A Cure
For Blood Clots)
fftnmf That rich uncle of'Afac's must have died!**
The time is coming in the not too distant future when a lot of re
marks like that will be flying around.
The Japanese hordes have been vanquished . . . with the proclama
tion of V-J Day Americans may now look forward to peaceful pur
suits ... To the building of a bright new future ... A future that
may be enjoyed by all the peace loving peoples of the world.
Pacific American
FISHERIES