环球英语 — 405：Mister Lobotomy

　　Voice 1
Hello, I’m Marina Santeee.
Voice 2
And I’m Ruby¹ Jones. Welcome to Spotlight². This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
California, the United States of America. The year is 1960. A young boy lies on a table. He is wearing white hospital clothes. A doctor has given him some electric shocks. These have made the boy unconscious. It is like he is asleep. He cannot hear or feel anything. - The doctor lifts the lid of one of the boy’s eyes. He then pushes a thin, sharp metal instrument above the eyeball. The doctor then hits the instrument gently with a hammer. The instrument is now touching³ the front part of the boy’s brain. The doctor then moves the instrument from side to side. He is trying to cut something.
Finally, the doctor pulls out the thin piece of metal. He then performs the same process above the boy’s other eye. After some time, the boy will wake up. His eyes will be black and painful. But he will not remember what has happened to him.
Voice 2
The boy’s name was Howard Dully. Howard was only twelve [12] years old when a doctor operated on his brain. The doctor was trying to cure Howard’s behaviour problems. Howard’s mother had died when he was five. And his new mother, Lou, could not relate well to Howard. She could not understand his unfriendly behaviour - it seemed unnatural⁴ to her. Finally, Lou took Howard to see a doctor. The doctor’s name was Walter Freeman.
Voice 1
But Freeman was not just any doctor. He was famous across the United States for his method for treating people with mental problems. Doctor Freeman thought that mental problems were caused by over-active emotions. So, to get rid of emotions was to get rid of mental problems. The frontal lobe⁵ is the front part of the brain. It processes memories and emotions. Nerves⁶ connect the frontal lobe to the thalamus - a small structure deep inside the brain. Freeman believed that the thalamus was the “store-room” of human emotions. He knew that doctors could operate and break the nerves that connected the frontal lobe to the thalamus. So a person would not then be physically⁷ able to react in an emotional⁸ way.
Voice 2
Freeman got his idea from a doctor in Portugal. Egas Moniz was the first doctor to try this method. Moniz called the operation, a leucotomy. He used a drill to make holes in the patient’s head. At first, Walter Freeman copied Moniz’s method. But using a drill to make holes took a long time. So, Freeman developed a simpler method to cut the nerves in the front lobe. It involved reaching the brain through a person’s eye-hole. He called it, the transorbital lobotomy. Freeman could perform a lobotomy in less than ten minutes! And this was what he did to Howard Dully.
Voice 1
In 2008, Howard Dully published a book about his lobotomy and how it affected⁹ his life. Howard says:
Voice 3
“If you saw me, you would never know I had a lobotomy... But I have always felt different. I wondered if something was missing¹⁰ from my soul.”
Voice 2
Freeman first used his lobotomy method in 1946. The patient’s name was Ellen Ionesco. Her daughter, Angeline Forrester remembers the event well:
Voice 4
“Before the operation, my mother was very violent. She kept trying to kill herself. After the lobotomy, there was nothing - it stopped immediately. There was just peace....so whatever Freeman did, he did something right.”
Voice 1
In the 1940s, many people thought that Walter Freeman had found the answer to mental disorders¹¹. And the mental health situation in the U S A needed some kind of answer. It was in crisis¹². Elliot Valenstein is a doctor of neuroscience. He describes why Freeman’s operation seemed to be the answer:
Voice 5
“Really there was no other way of treating people who had serious mental sickness. There were no medical drugs... And mental hospitals were over-crowded. People were willing to try almost anything! ...Stories about lobotomy spread so quickly... There were a lot of claims about its success...and a lot of people demanded the operation. They had parents or family members who really needed help and were not getting any.”
Voice 2
In 1952, Walter Freeman performed two hundred and fifty [250] lobotomies in one US state. This was over a period of only two weeks. But Freeman wanted more. He began offering lobotomies to people with less serious health problems - like headaches, or depression.
Voice 1
However, some of Freeman’s patients were left in a very bad state after their operations. They were left with brain damage. Some were like vegetables - unable to speak or move. Others had become like children - even though they were adults. But Freeman did not seem to think that he had failed in any way.
Voice 2
By the 1950s, a different treatment for mental sickness appeared - Thorazine. This drug produced the same result as a lobotomy. However it did not involve the same risk of permanent brain damage. Thorazine meant the beginning of the end for Walter Freeman’s lobotomies.
Voice 1
In all, Walter Freeman performed two thousand five hundred [2,500] lobotomies. He operated on his last patient, Ellen Mortensen, in 1967. She died of a bleed in the brain. But Freeman still believed in lobotomy as a cure. He spent the rest of his life travelling across the United States. He visited his old patients to find out how having a lobotomy had helped them. Freeman did this until he died of cancer in 1972.
Voice 2
And what about Howard Dully - Freeman’s youngest ever patient? He now says:
Voice 3
“I will never know what I lost after those ten minutes with Doctor Freeman’s sharp instrument. It was a miracle¹³ that it did not turn me into a brainless creature, or crush¹⁴ my spirit, or kill me. But it did affect me - deeply.”
Voice 2
And how will history judge Walter Freeman? Jack¹⁵ El-Hai has written a book about the doctor’s life. We end this programme with El Hai’s opinion:
Voice 6
I began by thinking that Freeman must have been an evil¹⁶ person... But now I think of Freeman as more of a tragic¹⁷ person. He was blind - not so much to the results of lobotomy. But blind to the results of his own mistakes and failings.”
 

1 ruby   

n.红宝石，红宝石色

参考例句：

• She is wearing a small ruby earring.她戴着一枚红宝石小耳环。
• On the handle of his sword sat the biggest ruby in the world.他的剑柄上镶有一颗世上最大的红宝石。

2 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

3 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

4 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

5 lobe   

n.耳垂，（肺，肝等的）叶

参考例句：

• Tiny electrical sensors are placed on your scalp and on each ear lobe.小电器传感器放置在您的头皮和对每个耳垂。
• The frontal lobe of the brain is responsible for controlling movement.大脑前叶的功能是控制行动。

6 nerves   

n.神经紧张 vt.鼓起勇气

参考例句：

• What he said at the meeting strung her nerves up. 他在会议上的发言使她的神经很紧张。
• At the end of a day's teaching, her nerves were absolutely shattered. 教了一天课，她精疲力竭。

7 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

8 emotional   

adj.令人动情的；易动感情的；感情(上)的

参考例句：

• Emotional people don't stop to calculate.感情容易冲动的人做事往往不加考虑。
• This is an emotional scene in the play.这是剧中动人的一幕。

9 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

10 missing   

adj.遗失的，缺少的，失踪的

参考例句：

• Check the tools and see if anything is missing.检点一下工具，看有无丢失。
• All the others are here;he's the only one missing.别人都来了，就短他一个。

11 disorders   

n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调

参考例句：

• Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告，厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 crisis   

n.危机，危急关头，决定性时刻，关键阶段

参考例句：

• He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明，在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
• The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。

13 miracle   

n.奇迹，令人惊奇的人或事

参考例句：

• The doctors said that his recovery was a miracle. 医生们说他的复原是件奇事。
• It is simply a miracle that rice should grow in such a place.稻子竟能在这样的地方生长，这实在是个奇迹。

14 crush   

v.压垮，压倒，压服，镇压；压碎，碾碎

参考例句：

• This machine is made to crush the rock into powder.这台机器是用来把石头压成碎末的。
• You can't crush so many people into the classroom.不能让这么多人挤进教室。

15 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

16 evil   

n.邪恶，不幸，罪恶；adj.邪恶的，不幸的，有害的，诽谤的

参考例句：

• We pray to God to deliver us from evil.我们祈求上帝把我们从罪恶中拯救出来。
• Love of money is the root of all evil.爱钱是邪恶的根源。

17 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。