Object Details
- Description (Brief)
- Doctors used these instruments to perform the lobotomy procedure on patients diagnosed with particular psychiatric conditions. The procedure was introduced in 1935 and popularized in the United States by Walter J. Freeman in the 1940s. The doctor inserted the instrument into the frontal lobe of the brain to destroy its connection with other regions.
- Description
- Leucotomes for lobotomies designed by Walter Jackson Freeman, II (1895-1972) and James Winston Watts (1904-1994) and made by Henry A. Ator (1906-1995). Freeman was a neurologist and psychologist affiliated with St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and George Washington University Hospital. Watts was a surgeon who served, for many years, as chief of neurosurgery at George Washington University Hospital. Ator was a machinist from Arkansas who worked at the Washington Navy Yard and then the Bureau of Printing and Engraving before turning his attention, in the 1940s, to lobotomy and other surgical instruments.
- Ref: Walter Freeman and James W. Watts, Psychosurgery: In the Treatment of Mental Disorders and Intractable Pain (Springfield, Ill., 1950).
- “W. Freeman, Lobotomy Pioneer, Dies,” Los Angeles Times (June 2, 1972), p. C4.
- “D.C. Neurosurgeon Pioneered ‘Operation Icepick’ Technique,” Washington Post (April 7, 1980), pp. A1-A2.
- “Neurosurgeon James Watts Dies; Helped to Pioneer the Lobotomy,” Washington Post (Nov. 9, 1994), p. C4.
- “Henry Avon Ator,” Washington Post (April 2, 1995), p. B5.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of Henry A. Ator
- ca 1950
- date(s) of previous ownership
- 1986-03-04
- ID Number
- 1986.0376.01
- accession number
- 1986.0376
- catalog number
- 1986.0376.01
- 1986.0376.01.A
- 1986.0376.01.B
- Object Name
- Leucotome, transorbital
- leucotome, transorbital
- Other Terms
- Leucotome, transorbital; Medicine
- Physical Description
- steel, stainless (instruments material)
- leatherette (case material)
- black (case color)
- Measurements
- part: case (closed): 8 1/4 in x 3 3/4 in x 3/4 in; 20.955 cm x 9.525 cm x 1.905 cm
- overall, case, closed: 3/4 in x 8 1/4 in x 3 3/4 in; 1.905 cm x 20.955 cm x 9.525 cm
- part: case (open): 13 7/16 in x 10 in x 1/4 in; 34.13125 cm x 25.4 cm x .635 cm
- part: instruments (each): 7 3/4 in x 1 1/2 in x 1/4 in; 19.685 cm x 3.81 cm x .635 cm
- place made
- United States: District of Columbia, Washington
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Medicine
- Health & Medicine
- Disabilities
- National Museum of American History
- Subject
- Disabilities
- Insanity
- Record ID
- nmah_738841
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a5-74dd-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
