History of leucotomies in Greece

In order to present the social, scientific and institutional context which permitted the use of leucotomies in Greece, we have reviewed the Archives of the Medical Associations, the medical literature of the years 1946–56, a reader’s dissertation and the memoirs of two psychiatrists. More than 250 leucotomies were done in the two public psychiatric hospitals in Athens from 1947 to 1954, as well as 40 leucotomies in the public psychiatric hospital in Thessaloniki. Although aware of the side effects, psychiatrists justified the use of the procedure. The performance of leucotomies in Greece declined because of reports of the dangers of the operation and its unpredictable outcome for the patients, but mainly because of the encouraging results with psychotropic drugs in the early 1950s.

[1]  P. Doshi,et al.  Neurosurgery for psychiatric disorders , 1997, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[2]  S. Kalyvas.  Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941–1944. By Violetta Hionidou. (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xvii, 261. $99.00.) , 2009 .

[3]  Zbigniew Kotowicz.  Psychosurgery in Italy, 1936—39 , 2008, History of psychiatry.

[4]  D. Ploumbidis,et al.  Greek Psychiatric Patients During World War II and the Greek Civil War, 1940-1949 , 2007 .

[5]  K. Fleming.  Famine and Death in Occupied Greece, 1941—1944 , 2006 .

[6]  N. Davidovitch,et al.  Last resort? Lobotomy operations in Israel, 1946–60 , 2006, History of psychiatry.

[7]  M. Sandlund,et al.  Psychosurgery in Sweden 1944–1964 , 2005, Journal of the history of the neurosciences.

[8]  W. Blomberg,et al.  Lobotomy in Norwegian psychiatry , 2005, History of psychiatry.

[9]  A. Tierney.  Egas Moniz and the Origins of Psychosurgery: A Review Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Moniz's Nobel Prize , 2000, Journal of the history of the neurosciences.

[10]  E. Brown.  Last resort: psychosurgery and the limits of medicine , 1999, Medical History.

[11]  G. Berríos.  The origins of psychosurgery: Shaw, Burckhardt and Moniz , 1997, History of psychiatry.

[12]  A. Kucharski.  History of frontal lobotomy in the United States, 1935-1955. , 1984, Neurosurgery.

[13]  C. Constantinides,et al.  Prefrontal leucotomy: remarks on the pathophysiology of the brain. , 1954, The American journal of psychiatry.

[14]  W. Freeman,et al.  PREFRONTAL LOBOTOMY: The Problem of Schizophrenia , 1945 .

[15]  W. Freeman,et al.  Psychosurgery: An Evaluation of Two Hundred Cases over Seven Years , 1944 .