A leucotome or McKenzie Leucotome is a

surgical instrument A surgical instrument is a tool or device for performing specific actions or carrying out desired effects during a surgery or operation, such as modifying biological tissue, or to provide access for viewing it. Over time, many different kinds of ...

used for performing leucotomies (also known as

lobotomy A lobotomy, or leucotomy, is a form of neurosurgical treatment for psychiatric disorder or neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy) that involves severing connections in the brain's prefrontal cortex. The surgery causes most of the connections to ...

) and other forms of

psychosurgery Psychosurgery, also called neurosurgery for mental disorder (NMD), is the neurosurgical treatment of mental disorder. Psychosurgery has always been a controversial medical field. The modern history of psychosurgery begins in the 1880s under th ...

. Invented by

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

neurosurgeon Dr. Kenneth G. McKenzie in the 1940s, the leucotome has a narrow shaft which is inserted into the brain through a hole in the skull, and then a plunger on the back of the leucotome is depressed to extend a wire loop or metal strip into the brain. The leucotome is then rotated, cutting a core of brain tissue. This type was used by the

Nobel prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

-winning Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz. Another, different, surgical instrument also called a leucotome was introduced by Walter Freeman for use in the transorbital lobotomy. Modeled after an

ice-pick The ice pick is a pointed metal tool used from the 1800s to the 1900s to break, pick or chip at ice. The design consists of a sharp metal spike attached to a wooden handle. The tool's design has been relatively unchanged since its creation. The ...

, it consisted simply of a pointed shaft. It was passed through the tear duct under the eyelid and against the top of the eyesocket. A mallet was used to drive the instrument through the thin layer of bone and into the brain along the plane of the bridge of the nose, to a depth of 5 cm. Due to incidents of breakage, a stronger but essentially identical instrument called an

orbitoclast An orbitoclast was a surgical instrument used for performing transorbital lobotomies. Because actual ice picks were used in initial experimentation and because of continued close resemblance to ice pick shafts, the procedure was dubbed "ice pick ...

was later used. Lobotomies were commonly performed from the 1930s to the 1960s, with a few as late as the 1980s in France. (French national consultative committee on ethics, opinion #71: Functional neurosurgery of severe psychiatric conditions)

Notes

External links

A leucotome
from the University of Manchester Medical School Museum

Neurosurgery History of neuroscience Surgical instruments Lobotomy {{medical-equipment-stub

See also

Notes

External links