Is it true that such lobotomy advertising existed in the 20th century?

A photo of a leaflet promoting lobotomy as a means to combat depression, migraines and other health problems is popular on the Internet. We decided to check whether such advertising was really common in the last century.

The picture, which looks like an old newspaper clipping, shows a human head with a lobotomy instrument inserted through the eye socket into the brain. The caption on the image reads: “Are you depressed? Do you suffer from anxiety and migraines? You may need a lobotomy!” Listed below are other problems that this procedure allegedly helps with: schizophrenia, panic disorder, post-traumatic syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, etc. Among them, “uncontrollable loved ones” are mentioned. Image leaflets can be found on entertainment portals And forums, on social networks (“VKontakte", X, Facebook*, Telegram) and on blogging platforms. 

Lobotomy - an operation in which one of the lobes of the brain is separated from other areas or removed altogether. In the mid-20th century, this procedure was used as a radical therapeutic measure designed to calm patients with mental illness. Technologies The lobotomy procedures differed: with the transorbital lobotomy, a pointed instrument (leukotome) was inserted into the patient through the orbit; with the prefrontal lobotomy, holes were drilled or punched in the skull. In some cases, before the lobotomy, trepanation skull so that the movements of the leukotome in the brain can be visually monitored.

The earliest posting of a viral image that Verified was able to find using a Google image search is fast on Instagram* by demonicpinfestation on January 3, 2017. The picture is accompanied by a caption that is obviously humorous and encourages people to perform a lobotomy using a “Lobotomy Tools” pin, which can be purchased at demonicpinfestation.bigcartel.com. Demonic Pinfestation company specializes in the production and sales icons horror-themed, and their assortment also includes decoration in the form tools for lobotomy. 

News agency fact checkers Reuters received confirmation from Demonic Pinfestation that the image was created by the company to advertise that very icon. Moreover, the picture was subsequently edited by other users - in some publications it is visually noticeably different from the original source. The image has been aged, perhaps to make it look more like a mid-century newspaper clipping. In the English-speaking segment of the Internet, this picture is often accompanied by statements that science should not be trusted, because previously scientists recommended lobotomy for a wide range of diseases, although the harm from it sometimes greatly exceeded the benefits. A representative of Demonic Pinfestation, in a comment to Reuters, expressed regret that her work was being used in this way.

Despite the radical nature of the operation, lobotomy was indeed popular in the last century. For the first time it was carried out on a person by a Portuguese neurologist. Antonio Egas Moniz in 1936, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 13 years later. Most widespread Lobotomy was performed in the USA and Great Britain - in the late 1940s, at the peak of its popularity, thousands of operations were performed per year. One of the ardent supporters of this procedure, who promoted its use in the United States, was a neurologist Walter Freeman, whose name also appears on the advertising flyer being disassembled. From the mid-1950s, lobotomy began to decline in popularity. The reason was that, firstly, the result did not always correspond to expectations (the symptoms of the disease stopped, the patient behaved calmer, but simply ceased to be himself, his personality was destroyed), and secondly, around the same time, the first effective medications for the treatment of mental illnesses appeared. In other countries, for example in the USSR, lobotomy was used much less frequently - only for severe schizophrenia, when no other treatment helped. As a result, during the 1940s, only a few hundred such operations were performed in the Soviet Union, and in 1950, lobotomy was completely banned.

So the image promoting lobotomy for depression, anxiety and other disorders is not an old advertisement for the actual procedure or the clinic that performs it. The picture was created only in 2017 - to promote themed jewelry, among which the manufacturing company’s assortment included a badge with lobotomy tools. The text in the image (and below the original post) is satire and not actual indications for such a procedure. However, advertising for lobotomy could well have existed, since in the USA, Great Britain and a number of other Western countries in the mid-20th century, treatment with this procedure was relatively popular.

*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: Instagram demonicpinfestation

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. N+1. Nothing better came to mind
2. BBC. The strange and curious history of lobotomy
3. Is the picture about headache treatment in 1895 true?
4. Is it true that the photo depicts an accident from the filming of a Nutella spread commercial?