PBS - American Experience: The Lobotomist (2008)

The lobotomy was hailed by The New York Times as a "surgery of the soul", a landmark medical procedure promising hope to mentally ill patients. Championed by neurologist Walter J. Freeman, this "last resort" caught on fast. A decade later, Freeman was decried as a moral monster and the lobotomy as a barbaric mistake of modern medicine. This program tells the gripping tale of medical intervention gone awry. Campbell Scott narrates.