As those who watched the procedure described it, a patient would be rendered unconscious by electroshock. Freeman would then take a sharp ice pick-like instrument, insert it above the patient's eyeball through the orbit of the eye, into the frontal lobes of the brain, moving the instrument back and forth.

How is lobotomy performed?

It was the most brutal, barbaric and infamous medical procedure of all time: an icepick hammered through the eye socket into the brain and "wriggled around", often leaving the patient in a vegetative state. The first lobotomy was performed by a Portuguese neurologist who drilled holes into the human skull.

Does a lobotomy do to a person?

While a small percentage of people supposedly got better or stayed the same, for many people, lobotomy had negative effects on a patient's personality, initiative, inhibitions, empathy and ability to function on their own. "The main long-term side effect was mental dullness," Lerner said.