美国国家公共电台 NPR The Lobotomy Of Patient H.M: A Personal Tragedy And Scientific Breakthrough

The Lobotomy Of Patient H.M: A Personal Tragedy And Scientific Breakthrough

ALLISON AUBREY, HOST:

The story of Henry Molaison is a sad one. Known as Patient H.M. in the medical community, he lost the ability to create memories after he underwent a lobotomy to treat his seizures¹. He earned a place in history, though, because his case taught scientists a lot about how the brain creates and stores memories.

Luke Dittrich is the author of a new book called "Patient H.M.: A Story Of Memory, Madness, And Family Secrets." He's also the grandson of the doctor who performed Patient H.M.'s lobotomy. We reached him at WGBH in Boston, and I asked him to begin by telling me more about Patient H.M.

LUKE DITTRICH: A lot of what we know about how memory works came from more than a half century of experimentation² on Patient H.M., but before he was Patient H.M., he was a man named Henry Molaison. He was deeply and almost catastrophically epileptic. And so my grandfather who was a renowned³ neurosurgeon offered Henry's family hope in the form of an experimental brain operation. And they, you know, in their desperation, they said yes. And so my grandfather went in, and he removed significant portions of Henry's hippocampus, amygdala, uncus, entorhinal cortex.

And although it may have had some effect on sort of alleviating⁴ the seizures, the main thing that the surgery did was render Henry profoundly amnesic⁵. He sort of lived the rest of his life in more or less 30-second increments⁶. His loss, though, was our gain, ultimately. He led to a profound kind of revolution in our understanding of how we create memories and the different sort of memory systems that we have in our brains and our minds.

AUBREY: Now, your book definitely covers a lot more than just H.M. Tell us about your grandfather.

DITTRICH: So he died when I was 9 years old, but he always sort of loomed⁷ large even when I was a kid as this charismatic and dashing character. I think somebody once described him as like, you know, James Bond with a scalpel.

But he also was one of the leading proponents⁸ in America of so-called psychosurgery which we commonly think of as, you know, the lobotomy that is surgical⁹ treatments for mental illness, the idea that you can treat insanity¹⁰ or basically all sorts of mental illnesses by destroying different parts of the brain. He believed in this.

AUBREY: Your grandfather performed a lot of lobotomies. He did this on a range of patients, many of whom were institutionalized. Who were these people and what kinds of medical conditions did they have?

DITTRICH: So most of them were women. My grandfather I don't think ever went too, too young, but I know some lobotomists operated on people as young as 7 years old.

AUBREY: For what reasons?

DITTRICH: Well, often you'd find that they would do it for what we would consider to be almost, you know, normal, child-like behavior, you know, to treat juvenile¹¹ delinquency or hyperactivity or misbehavior of all sorts of, you know, vague description. And it was also used to treat, quote, unquote, "conditions" that were not conditions at all. People were lobotomized for homosexuality.

AUBREY: Wow. So really anything outside the social norm of the day would have made you a candidate for a lobotomy?

DITTRICH: That's not too far from the truth. I mean, there was certainly a period when if you strayed too far outside of certain lines, you might wind up in an operating room.

AUBREY: Well, you learn from at least one source that perhaps your grandfather performed a lobotomy on your grandmother. Is that right?

DITTRICH: Well, as you say, this is something that one source told me - a man who was in a position to know. My grandmother in 1944 had a legitimate¹² breakdown¹³. And that breakdown involved hallucinations, and it involved a suicide attempt. And she was put into this very upscale asylum¹⁴, the Institute of Living.

And even putting aside the question of whether or not my grandfather operated on her, what she endured was really terrifying. I mean, to be a woman in a mental institution in the 1940s was to be sort of living a horror story. And she underwent something called pyretta (ph) therapy, for example, which I hadn't even heard of. It's otherwise known as fever therapy where they would basically, you know, lock you into a brass¹⁵ coffin¹⁶ and then heat up the inside until you developed a fever of as high as 105 degrees, and they would keep you there for eight hours a day sometimes for a week straight.

And that was thought to have sort of a pacifying¹⁷ effect on patients who were mentally disturbed. And thinking back to sort of the buried secrets that were there that I didn't see, that nobody saw - it's hard. You know, this is a book that I wrote about memory and how memory works, and one of the strange sort of side effects of working on this book is that it has shifted and changed some of my own memories from my childhood.

AUBREY: Luke Dittrich is the author of "Patient H.M.: A Story Of Memory, Madness, And Family Secrets." Thanks so much for joining us, Luke.

DITTRICH: Thank you for having me.

1 seizures   

n.起获( seizure的名词复数 )；没收；充公；起获的赃物

参考例句：

• Seizures of illicit drugs have increased by 30% this year. 今年违禁药品的扣押增长了30%。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Other causes of unconsciousness predisposing to aspiration lung abscess are convulsive seizures. 造成吸入性肺脓肿昏迷的其他原因，有惊厥发作。 来自辞典例句

2 experimentation   

n.实验，试验，实验法

参考例句：

• Many people object to experimentation on animals.许多人反对用动物做实验。
• Study and analysis are likely to be far cheaper than experimentation.研究和分析的费用可能要比实验少得多。

3 renowned   

adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的

参考例句：

• He is one of the world's renowned writers.他是世界上知名的作家之一。
• She is renowned for her advocacy of human rights.她以提倡人权而闻名。

4 alleviating   

减轻，缓解，缓和( alleviate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• If it's alleviating pain,who knows what else it's doing? 如果它减轻了疼痛，天知道还影响什么？
• Measuring poverty is not the same as alleviating it, of course. 当然，衡量贫困和减轻贫困是截然不同的。

5 amnesic   

遗忘的； 失去记忆的； 失去存储的； 引起遗忘的

参考例句：

• They arrive back in the US amnesic for the period of brainwashing. 他们返抵美国后，由于洗脑忘记了那段时间发生了什么。
• The researchers tested four healthy individuals and four amnesic patients. 研究者测试了四个健康的人和四个失忆症患者。

6 increments   

n.增长( increment的名词复数 )；增量；增额；定期的加薪

参考例句：

• These increments were mixed and looked into the 5.56mm catridge case. 将各种药粒进行混和，装在5．56毫米的弹壳中。 来自辞典例句
• The Rankine scale has scale increments equal to the FahrenheIt'scale. 兰氏温标的温度间距与华氏温标的相同。 来自辞典例句

7 loomed   

v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• A dark shape loomed up ahead of us. 一个黑糊糊的影子隐隐出现在我们的前面。
• The prospect of war loomed large in everyone's mind. 战事将起的庞大阴影占据每个人的心。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 proponents   

n.（某事业、理论等的）支持者，拥护者( proponent的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Reviewing courts were among the most active proponents of hybrid rulemaking procedures. 复审法院是最积极的混合型规则制定程序的建议者。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
• Proponents of such opinions were arrested as 'traitors. ' 提倡这种主张的人马上作为“卖国贼”逮捕起来。 来自辞典例句

9 surgical   

adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的

参考例句：

• He performs the surgical operations at the Red Cross Hospital.他在红十字会医院做外科手术。
• All surgical instruments must be sterilised before use.所有的外科手术器械在使用之前，必须消毒。

10 insanity   

n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐

参考例句：

• In his defense he alleged temporary insanity.他伪称一时精神错乱，为自己辩解。
• He remained in his cell,and this visit only increased the belief in his insanity.他依旧还是住在他的地牢里，这次视察只是更加使人相信他是个疯子了。

11 juvenile   

n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的

参考例句：

• For a grown man he acted in a very juvenile manner.身为成年人，他的行为举止显得十分幼稚。
• Juvenile crime is increasing at a terrifying rate.青少年犯罪正在以惊人的速度增长。

12 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

13 breakdown   

n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌

参考例句：

• She suffered a nervous breakdown.她患神经衰弱。
• The plane had a breakdown in the air,but it was fortunately removed by the ace pilot.飞机在空中发生了故障，但幸运的是被王牌驾驶员排除了。

14 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

15 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

16 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

17 pacifying   

使（某人）安静( pacify的现在分词 )； 息怒； 抚慰； 在（有战争的地区、国家等）实现和平

参考例句：

• The papers put the emphasis on pacifying rather than suppressing the protesters. 他们强调要安抚抗议者而不是动用武力镇压。
• Hawthorn products have the function of pacifying the stomach and spleen, and promoting digestion. 山楂制品，和中消食。