The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness

· Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Peter Lerman
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15 hr 40 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, MD, who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman's documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius.

About the author

Jack El-Hai is a Minneapolis author whose writing has been published in The Atlantic, Wired, GQ, Discover, Scientific American Mind, and Minnesota Monthly. His books include The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, The Lobotomist, Lost Minnesota, and Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines.

Peter Lerman is a narrator from the heart of New York City: Brooklyn born and raised. He has appeared onstage as Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly, Bobby Gould in Speed-the-Plow, the Governor of Texas in Best Little Whorehouse..., Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace, and Lenny in Rumors.

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Narrated by Peter Lerman