American physician and psychiatrist (died 1972)

Walter Jackson Freeman II

Walter Jackson Freeman II was an American neurologist who claimed that he specialized in lobotomy. Wanting to simplify lobotomies so that it could be carried out by psychiatrists in psychiatric hospitals, where there were often no operating rooms, surgeons, or anesthesia and limited budgets, Freeman popularized a transorbital lobotomy procedure. The transorbital approach involved placing an orbitoclast under the eyelid and against the top of the eye socket; a mallet was then used to drive the orbitoclast through the thin layer of bone and into the brain. Freeman's transorbital lobotomy method did not require a neurosurgeon and could be performed outside of an operating room, often by untrained psychiatrists without the use of anesthesia by using electroconvulsive therapy to induce seizure and unconsciousness.