ABSTRACT
Most people trust medical professionals with the physical body. Patients routinely submit themselves to invasive procedures. Informed of the risks, they are willing to take them in hope of cure or alleviation of disease symptoms. But in neurosurgery, and psychosurgery in particular, patients must entrust physicians with the body and the mind. When a patient considers the risks, fear, caution, and uncertainty are understandable. Psychosurgery began to gain support in the 1930s, only to fall out of favor in the late 1940s due to concerns over personality changes following surgery. The faith once placed in surgical procedures was rerouted to newly introduced psychoactive medications. Drug treatment unfortunately was not beneficial to all psychiatric patients and led to side effects. Thus psychosurgery reemerged later in the century, but with the same ethical dilemmas.
