The process took only a matter of minutes to complete. In September 1936, Freeman performed the first prefrontal lobotomy in the U.S. From 1936 onward, tens of thousands of lobotomies were performed.

Doctors were sometimes willing to try ... In the United States, neurology professor Walter Freeman threw himself into lobotomy practice and promotion with an unmatched fervor.

The crisis in state mental hospitals motivated Dr. Walter Freeman to devise a simple version of the lobotomy procedure, one that could be used on a mass scale. "All of a sudden America sees these ...