{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,4]],"date-time":"2026-07-04T12:10:14Z","timestamp":1783167014691,"version":"3.54.6"},"reference-count":96,"publisher":"University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)","issue":"2","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Canadian Bulletin of Medical History"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p> In the 1940s, Wilder Penfield carried out a series of experimental psychosurgeries with the psychiatrist D. Ewen Cameron. This article explores Penfield\u2019s brief foray into psychosurgery and uses this episode to re-examine the emergence of his surgical enterprise. Penfield\u2019s greatest achievement \u2013 the surgical treatment of epilepsy \u2013 grew from the same roots as psychosurgery, and the histories of these treatments overlap in surprising ways. Within the contexts of Rockefeller-funded neuropsychiatry and Adolf Meyer\u2019s psychobiology, Penfield\u2019s frontal lobe operations (including a key operation on his sister) played a crucial role in the development of lobotomy in the 1930s. The combination of ambiguous data and the desire to collaborate with a psychiatrist encouraged Penfield to try to develop a superior operation. However, unlike his collaboration with psychiatrists, Penfield\u2019s productive working relationship with psychologists encouraged him to abandon the experimental \u201cgyrectomy\u201d procedure. The story of Penfield\u2019s attempt to find a better lobotomy can help us to examine different forms of interdisciplinarity within biomedicine. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3138\/cbmh.486-112020","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,17]],"date-time":"2021-08-17T22:49:24Z","timestamp":1629240564000},"page":"253-284","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Two Solitudes: Wilder Penfield, Ewen Cameron, and the Search for a Better Lobotomy"],"prefix":"10.3138","volume":"38","author":[{"given":"Yvan","family":"Prkachin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Yvan Prkachin \u2013 History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1696","reference":[{"key":"fn1","unstructured":"McGill University Archives, Herbert Jasper Fonds [H.J. Fonds], Box 1, Folder 11."},{"key":"fn2","unstructured":"Linda Leith, Introducing Hugh MacLennan\u2019s Two Solitudes: A Reader\u2019s Guide (Toronto: ECW Press, 1990)."},{"key":"fn3","unstructured":"For an overview, see Katja Guenther, Localization and Its Discontents: A Genealogy of Psychoanalysis and the Neuro Disciplines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); and Anne Harrington, Mind Fixers: Psychiatry\u2019s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness (New York: W.W. Norton, 2019), 32\u2013106."},{"key":"fn4","unstructured":"Jefferson Lewis, Something Hidden: A Biography of Wilder Penfield (Halifax, NS: Formac, 1983), 213\u201314; and Richard Leblanc, \u201cAgainst the Current: Wilder Pen\ufb01eld, the Frontal Lobes and Psychosurgery,\u201d Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences 46, no. 5 (2019): 585\u201390. The historiography of psychosurgery has been dominated by American historians but has recently opened up to other national and global perspectives. See esp. Brianne M. Collins and Henderikus J. Stam, \u201cA Transnational Perspective on Psychosurgery: Beyond Portugal and the United States,\u201d Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 23, no. 4 (2014): 335\u201354; Brianne Collins, \u201cOntario\u2019s Leucotomy Program: The Roles of Patient, Physician, and Profession,\u201d MA thesis, University of Calgary, 2012; and Collins, \u201cUncharted Territory: Psychosurgery in Western Canada, 1935\u20131970,\u201d PhD thesis, University of Calgary, 2020. As Collins demonstrates, the only other neurosurgeon in Canada to take up psychosurgery initially was K.G. McKenzie of Toronto, who performed the first such operation in Canada in 1941. However, it is notable that McKenzie\u2019s technique was mainly a variation of the traditional Moniz leucotomy operation."},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn5.1","unstructured":"According to Anne Collins, their relationship was rocky from the beginning and deteriorated quickly as Cameron set up his own institutional power base. Anne Collins, In the Sleep Room: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1997), 65-66, 104-8"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn5.2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"and John Marks, The Search for the \"Manchurian Candidate\": The CIA and Mind Control (New York: Times Books, 1979). On the changes in Cameron's image following the revelations of his CIA connections, see Rebecca Lemov, \"Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron,\" Grey Room 45 (2011): 60-87.","DOI":"10.1162\/GREY_a_00050"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn6.1","unstructured":"Elliot S. Valenstein, Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical Treatments for Mental Illness (New York: Basic Books, 1986), 3-22"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn6.2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Delia Gavrus, \"Men of Dreams and Men of Action: Neurologists, Neurosurgeons, and the Performance of Professional Identity, 1920-1950,\" Bulletin of the History of Medicine [BHM] 85, no. 1 (2011): 57-92","DOI":"10.1353\/bhm.2011.0020"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn6.3","unstructured":"and Delia Gavrus, \"Men of Strong Opinions: Identity, Self-Representation, and the Performance of Neurosurgery, 1919-1950,\" PhD thesis, University of Toronto, 2011."},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn7.1","unstructured":"The literature on Meyerian psychiatry is extensive and growing. See Jack David Pressman, Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 18-46"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn7.2","unstructured":"Jack D. Pressman, \"Human Understanding: Psychosomatic Medicine and the Mission of the Rockefeller Foundation,\" in Christopher Lawrence and George Weisz, eds. Greater Than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine, 1920-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 189-208"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn7.3","unstructured":"S.D. Lamb, Pathologist of the Mind: Adolf Meyer and the Origins of American Psychiatry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014)"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn7.4","unstructured":"Theodore M. Brown, \"Alan Gregg and the Rockefeller Foundation's Support of Franz Alexander's Psychosomatic Research,\" BHM 61, no. 2 (1987): 155-82, 155"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn7.5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"and Cheryl A. Logan, \"The Legacy of Adolf Meyer's Comparative Approach: Worcester Rats and the Strange Birth of the Animal Model,\" Integrative Physiological & Behavioral Science 40, no. 4 (2005): 169-81. Notably, Lamb beautifully explicates the neurobiology that underlay Meyer's initial vision of psychobiology and his nuanced understanding of the concept of \"adjustment\" that guided both diagnosis and treatment at his Phipps Clinic.","DOI":"10.1007\/BF02915214"},{"key":"fn8","unstructured":"Montreal Neurological Institute, Prospect and Retrospect in Neurology: Second Foundation Volume (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1955), 23. Penfield, for his part, returned the admiration, and wrote a biography of Gregg: Wilder Penfield, The Difficult Art of Giving: The Epic of Alan Gregg (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1967)."},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn9.1","unstructured":"Owsei Temkin, The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 288-324"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn9.2","unstructured":"and Ellen Dwyer, \"Stories of Epilepsy, 1880-1930,\" in Charles E. Rosenberg and Janet Golden, eds. Framing Disease: Studies in Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 248-72."},{"key":"fn10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Stanley Cobb, Borderlands of Psychiatry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943), xi.","DOI":"10.4159\/harvard.9780674497146"},{"key":"fn11","unstructured":"Dwyer, \u201cStories of Epilepsy.\u201d"},{"key":"fn12","unstructured":"Cobb, Borderlands of Psychiatry, xii."},{"key":"fn13","unstructured":"Wilder Penfield, No Man Alone: A Neurosurgeon\u2019s Life (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1977), 75."},{"key":"fn14","unstructured":"Penfield, No Man Alone, 26\u2013137."},{"key":"fn15","unstructured":"Osler Library for the History of Medicine, Wilder Penfield Fonds [W.P. Fonds], Box 43, C\/G 3\u20131\/1, \u201cProposed Laboratory of Neurocytology.\u201d"},{"key":"fn16","unstructured":"Gregg, quoted in Penfield, No Man Alone, 295\u201396."},{"key":"fn17","unstructured":"Richard Leblanc, Radical Treatment: Wilder Penfield\u2019s Life in Neuroscience (Montreal: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2020); Wilder Penfield, \u201cThe Radical Treatment of Traumatic Epilepsy and Its Rationale,\u201d Canadian Medical Association Journal 23, no. 2 (1930): 189\u201397; and Guenther, Localization and Its Discontents, 96\u2013121, 153\u201384."},{"key":"fn18","unstructured":"Penfield, No Man Alone, 298."},{"key":"fn19","unstructured":"Pressman, Last Resort, 63, 83, 469n33."},{"key":"fn20","unstructured":"Penfield, No Man Alone, 156\u201359; and Penfield, \u201cRadical Treatment.\u201d"},{"key":"fn21","unstructured":"Percival Bailey, Intracranial Tumors (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1933), 433."},{"key":"fn22","unstructured":"Valenstein, Great and Desperate Cures, 88\u201389."},{"key":"fn23","unstructured":"Frederick Tilney, The Master of Destiny: A Biography of the Brain (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1930), 302."},{"key":"fn24","unstructured":"Penfield, No Man Alone, 207\u201321."},{"key":"fn25","unstructured":"Penfield, 207\u201322."},{"key":"fn26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Quoted in Wilder Penfield and Joseph Evans, \u201cThe Frontal Lobe in Man: A Clinical Study of Maximum Removals,\u201d Brain 58, no. 1 (1935): 115\u201333, 118.","DOI":"10.1093\/brain\/58.1.115"},{"key":"fn27","unstructured":"Penfield and Evans, \u201cThe Frontal Lobe in Man,\u201d 131."},{"key":"fn28","unstructured":"Wilder Penfield and Joseph Evans, \u201cFunctional Defects Produced by Cerebral Lobectomies,\u201d Proceedings of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases 13 (1934): 352\u201377."},{"key":"fn29","unstructured":"Penfield and Evans, \u201cThe Frontal Lobe in Man,\u201d 133."},{"key":"fn30","unstructured":"John Fulton to Penfield, 30 December 1932, W.P. Fonds, Box 29, C\/D 16, \u201cFulton.\u201d"},{"key":"fn31","unstructured":"Jack D. Pressman, \u201cSufficient Promise: John F. Fulton and the Origins of Psychosurgery,\u201d BHM 62, no. 1 (1988): 1\u201322."},{"key":"fn32","unstructured":"Jacobsen, quoted in Pressman, \u201cSufficient Promise,\u201d 3."},{"key":"fn33","unstructured":"See also Valenstein, Great and Desperate Cures, 80\u2013100."},{"key":"fn34","unstructured":"Pressman, Last Resort, 51."},{"key":"fn35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Walter Freeman to Penfield, 7 December 1936, W.P. Fonds, Box 53, C\/G 36 E-F.","DOI":"10.1001\/archneurpsyc.1936.02260090002001"},{"key":"fn36","unstructured":"Alan Gregg, diary, 8 December 1938, W.P. Fonds, Box 44, C\/G 5-3\/5, \u201cGregg Diaries Extracts \u2013 1931\u201350.\u201d"},{"key":"fn37","unstructured":"Walter Penfield and Stanley Cobb, \u201cExperimentation in Clinical Medicine,\u201d W.P. Fonds, Box 29, C\/D 14-6."},{"key":"fn38","unstructured":"Penfield and Cobb, \u201cExperimentation in Clinical Medicine.\u201d"},{"key":"fn39","unstructured":"Penfield to F. Golla, 6 May 1940, W.P. Fonds, Box 55, C\/G 40 G."},{"key":"fn40","unstructured":"Penfield to Grant Fleming, 11 February 1937, W.P. Fonds, Box 1, A\/M 2\/2-2."},{"key":"fn41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"D.O. Hebb and Wilder Penfield, \u201cHuman Behavior after Extensive Bilateral Removal from the Frontal Lobes,\u201d Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry 44, no. 2 (1940): 421\u201338, 421.","DOI":"10.1001\/archneurpsyc.1940.02280080181011"},{"key":"fn42","unstructured":"Hebb and Penfield, \u201cHuman Behavior,\u201d 434."},{"key":"fn43","unstructured":"Molly Harrower, \u201cBirth of Neuropsychology,\u201d W.P. Fonds, Box 23, File 35, \u201cMolly Harrower Autobiography.\u201d"},{"key":"fn44","unstructured":"This correspondence is contained in W.P. Fonds, Box 141, W\/P 109."},{"key":"fn45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Stanley Cobb, \u201cReview of Neuropsychiatry for 1940,\u201d Archives of Internal Medicine 66, no. 6 (1940): 1341\u201354, 1352.","DOI":"10.1001\/archinte.1940.00190180153011"},{"key":"fn46","unstructured":"Penfield to Stanley Cobb, 3 October 1940, W.P. Fonds, Box 29, C\/D 14-6."},{"key":"fn47","unstructured":"Penfield to Cobb, 3 October 1940."},{"key":"fn48","unstructured":"Pressman, Last Resort, 318\u201361."},{"key":"fn49","unstructured":"Penfield to Eldridge H Campbell, 3 September 1937, W.P. Fonds, Box 54, Folder C\/G 37 C."},{"key":"fn50","unstructured":"\u201cMemorandum Regarding Proposals to Create an Institute of Psychiatry,\u201d W.P. Fonds, Box 4, Folder A\/M 10-1, \u201cMcGill Misc 1941-44 Psychiatry.\u201d"},{"key":"fn51","unstructured":"Penfield to J.R. Fraser, 5 November 1942, W.P. Fonds, Box 4, Folder A\/M 10-1-2."},{"key":"fn52","unstructured":"Penfield to Adolf Meyer, 2 January 1942, W.P. Fonds, Box 24, C\/D 2-1."},{"key":"fn53","unstructured":"Meyer to Penfield, 8 January 1942, W.P. Fonds, Box 24, C\/D 2-1."},{"key":"fn54","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"William Sargant, \u201cEwen Cameron, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C.) D.P.M.\u201d British Medical Journal 3, no. 5568 (1967): 803\u20134.","DOI":"10.1136\/bmj.3.5568.803"},{"key":"fn55","unstructured":"Lemov, \u201cBrainwashing\u2019s Avatar\u201d; and Ewen Cameron, Objective and Experimental Psychiatry (New York: Macmillan, 1935)."},{"key":"fn56","unstructured":"Penfield to Ewen Cameron, 20 March 1944, W.P. Fonds, Box 4, Folder A\/M 10-1, \u201cMcGill Misc 1941\u201344 Psychiatry.\u201d"},{"key":"fn57","unstructured":"Penfield to Fraser, 30 March 1944, W.P. Fonds, Box 1, Folder A\/M 2\/2-4."},{"key":"fn58","unstructured":"Penfield to Fraser, 5 November 1942, W.P. Fonds, Box 4, Folder A\/M 10-1."},{"key":"fn59","unstructured":"Penfield to George E. Reed, 4 October 1944, W.P. Fonds, Box 58, C\/G 44 R."},{"key":"fn60","unstructured":"Not to be confused with the famous amensic patient H.M., later studied closely by MNI neuropsychologist Brenda Milner. W. Penfield, \u201cBilateral Frontal Gyrectomy and Postoperative Intelligence,\u201d Research Publications of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease 27 (1948): 519\u201334, 520."},{"key":"fn61","unstructured":"Penfield, \u201cBilateral Frontal Gyrectomy,\u201d 522."},{"key":"fn62","unstructured":"Penfield."},{"key":"fn63","unstructured":"See Penfield to D.O. Hebb, 26 May\u201316 October 1944, W.P. Fonds, Box 57, C\/G 44 H-I-J."},{"key":"fn64","unstructured":"Robert Malmo to Herbert Jasper, 17 May 1993, H.J. Fonds, Box 2, Folder 116."},{"key":"fn65","unstructured":"Herbert H. Jasper, \u201cA Historical Perspective: The Rise and Fall of Prefrontal Lobotomy,\u201d Advances in Neurology 66 (1995): 97\u2013114."},{"key":"fn66","unstructured":"Penfield to Hebb, 28 January 1946, W.P. Fonds, Box 58, C\/G 46 H-I-J."},{"key":"fn67","unstructured":"Pressman, Last Resort, 28."},{"key":"fn68","unstructured":"Examples abound. See Brown, \u201cAlan Gregg\u201d; and Pressman, \u201cHuman Understanding.\u201d"},{"key":"fn69","unstructured":"Penfield to W.S. Ross, 15 May 1945, W.P. Fonds, Box 58, Folder C\/G 45 R."},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn70.1","unstructured":"James Lawrence Pool and Charles Albert Elsberg, The Neurological Institute of New York, 1909-1974: With Personal Anecdotes (Lakeville, CT: Pocket Knife Press, 1975), 68"},{"key":"#cr-split#-fn70.2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"and J. Lawrence Pool, \"Topectomy: The Treatment of Mental Illness by Frontal Gyrectomy or Bilateral Subtotal Ablation of Frontal Cortex,\" The Lancet 254, no. 6583 (1949): 776-81.","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(49)91368-9"},{"key":"fn71","unstructured":"Penfield to Cameron, 2 October 1947, W.P. Fonds, Box 59, C\/G 47 M."},{"key":"fn72","unstructured":"Pressman, Last Resort, 318\u201362."},{"key":"fn73","unstructured":"Penfield, \u201cBilateral Frontal Gyrectomy,\u201d 534."},{"key":"fn74","unstructured":"R.B. Malmo, \u201cPsychological Aspects of Frontal Gyrectomy and Frontal Lobotomy in Mental Patients,\u201d Research Publications of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease 27 (1948): 537\u201362, 537."},{"key":"fn75","unstructured":"D.E. Cameron and M.D. Prados, \u201cBilateral Frontal Gyrectomy: Psychiatric Results,\u201d Research Publications of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease 27 (1948): 534\u201337, 537."},{"key":"fn76","unstructured":"See correspondence between Cameron, Penfield, and Orville T. Bailey, 7 June 1950\u20134 August 1950, W.P. Fonds, Box 60, C\/G 50 B."},{"key":"fn77","unstructured":"Cameron to Penfield, 7 April 1952, W.P. Fonds, Box 61, C\/G 52 C."},{"key":"fn78","unstructured":"Penfield to Cameron, 23 April 1952, W.P. Fonds, Box 61, C\/G 52 C."},{"key":"fn79","unstructured":"Cameron to Penfield, 2 May 1952, W.P. Fonds, Box 61, C\/G 52 C."},{"key":"fn80","unstructured":"Penfield to C. Sidney Burwell, 7 May 1949, W.P. Fonds, Box 60, C\/G 49 B."},{"key":"fn81","unstructured":"See correspondence between Penfield, Freeman, Riley, and Jasper, 7 July\u20131 August 1949, W.P. Fonds, Box 59, C\/G 47 E-F."},{"key":"fn82","unstructured":"Penfield to Freeman, 5 March 1951, W.P. Fonds, Box 61, C\/G 51 E-F."},{"key":"fn83","unstructured":"Penfield to Carl-Eugen Erdmann, 20 December 1954, W.P. Fonds, Box 62, C\/G E-F."},{"key":"fn84","unstructured":"Collins, In the Sleep Room, 100\u201320."},{"key":"fn85","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Eric Hutton, \u201cPenfield,\u201d Maclean\u2019s, 18 February 1956, 11\u201315, 68\u201374 (quotation from 68).","DOI":"10.5194\/gh-11-68-1956"},{"key":"fn86","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Collins, In the Sleep Room, 160\u201381; D. Ewen Cameron, \u201cPsychic Driving,\u201d American Journal of Psychiatry 112, no. 7 (1956): 502\u20139; D. Ewen Cameron et al., \u201cAutomation of Psychotherapy,\u201d Comprehensive Psychiatry 5, no. 1 (1964): 1\u201314; D. Ewen Cameron, John G. Lohrenz, and K.A. Handcock, \u201cThe Depatterning Treatment of Schizophrenia,\u201d Comprehensive Psychiatry 3, no. 2 (1962): 65\u201376; and Lemov, \u201cBrainwashing\u2019s Avatar.\u201d","DOI":"10.1016\/S0010-440X(62)80015-7"},{"key":"fn87","unstructured":"H.J. Fonds, Box 1, Folder 11."}],"container-title":["Canadian Bulletin of Medical History"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/utpjournals.press\/doi\/pdf\/10.3138\/cbmh.486-112020","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,21]],"date-time":"2022-07-21T00:55:29Z","timestamp":1658364929000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/utpjournals.press\/doi\/10.3138\/cbmh.486-112020"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,1]]},"references-count":96,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,1]]}},"alternative-id":["10.3138\/cbmh.486-112020"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3138\/cbmh.486-112020","relation":{},"ISSN":["0823-2105","2371-0179"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0823-2105","type":"print"},{"value":"2371-0179","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,1]]}}}