Last Resort Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine Series

During the 1940s and 1950s, tens of thousands of Americans underwent some form of psychosurgery; that is, their brains were operated upon for the putative purpose of treating mental illness. From today's perspective, such medical practices appear foolhardy at best, perhaps even barbaric; most commentators thus have seen in the story of lobotomy an important warning about the kinds of hazards that society will face whenever incompetent or malicious physicians are allowed to overstep the boundaries of valid medical science. Last Resort, first published in 1998, challenges the previously accepted psychosurgery story and raises new questions about what we should consider its important lessons.

Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Psychiatry's renaissance; 2. Sufficient promise; 3. Certain benefit; 4. Active treatment; 5. Human salvage; 6. Localized decisions; 7. The politics of precision; 8. Medicine controlled; Epilogue and conclusion; Appendix.

This book revisits the heyday of psychosurgery in America in the 1940s and 1950s when tens of thousands of patients were given brain operations in the hope of relieving mental illness. By exploring the history of psychiatry as a discipline and a medical specialty, the book accounts for why so many trusted and caring physicians could reasonably believe that the procedure benefited their patients. The book uses the story of psychosurgery to challenge our usual models of how physicians decide that a treatment works.