Michelangelo's unparalleled frescoes in the Sistine Chapel have been traditionally construed to represent the traditional, Roman Catholic interpretation of the Seven Days of Creation in the Book of Genesis and the Last Judgement. Indeed, in September 2018, Pope Francis I offered a benediction for the Vatican's art treasures and for "those who contributed to the Church's history through art." A number of studies have suggested that Michelangelo concealed anatomic information about the human brain in his renderings of God and biblical prophets and saints.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor 60 years, the details about Eva Perón's illness and lobotomy at the end of her life have been obscured from the public. Here, we examine the sociopolitical factors that may have contributed to this secrecy. The first involves Eva Perón's political status and the personality cult surrounding her image, including partisan efforts to present her as a patron saint of Peronism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEva Perón, best known as Evita, underwent a prefrontal lobotomy in 1952. Although the procedure was said to have been performed to relieve the pain of metastatic cancer, the author carried out a search for evidence that suggests that the procedure was prescribed to decrease violence and to modify Evita's behavior and personality, and not just for pain control. To further elucidate the circumstances surrounding the treatment of this well-known historic figure, the author reviewed the development of the procedure known as prefrontal lobotomy and its three main indications: management of psychiatric illness, control of intractable pain from terminal cancer, and mind control and behavior/personality modification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPsychosurgery, a subspecialty of functional neurosurgery, has been used in the treatment of psychiatric illness, intractable pain, and, controversially, as ameans to control and modify violent human behavior. Prefrontal lobotomy, a procedure developed in the 20th century, arose as a result of pioneering research, includingwork done atYaleUniversity in New Haven. Prominent clinicians throughout Connecticut contributed to the development of modern psychosurgery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To give validity to the claim that Eva Perón underwent a prefrontal lobotomy and/or another neurosurgical procedure.
Methods: 1) Press interviews given by Dr. George Udvarhelyi, who passed away in 2010, were read and his statements were crosschecked with excerpts of his memoirs; 2) Searched for other oral and written evidence in Argentina; 3) Reviewed radiological evidence and recent revelations about her illness and death; and 4) Carried out historic review of prefrontal lobotomy as an accepted and established surgical treatment during the relevant time period and place.
Stereotact Funct Neurosurg
January 1999
Over a one-year period of time, five stereotactic biopsies were performed in the Greater-Bridgeport hospitals using a new burr hole-mounted stereotactic device. We discuss our results as well as some general considerations on the applicability of this material to the community neurosurgeon.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA retrospective review of 12 cases of meningioma of Meckel's cave involving the Gasserian ganglion or the trigeminal posterior root (or both) seen at the Mayo Clinic during a 20-year period suggested three clearly defined clinical groups. One group (the largest) had typical trigeminal neuralgia and an excellent prognosis after the removal of the easily detachable mass that was impinging on the ganglion. A second group, with meningiomas en plaque embedded in the ganglion, had a history of atypical trigeminal face pain without neurological deficit, but the prognosis for pain relief was not as good as in the previous group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ascending projections of the dorsolateral funiculus of the spinal cord to the brain stem have been determined in five macaque monkeys. Connections to the lateral cervical nucleus and to the reticular nucleus of the cord in the C1 and C2 segments are present. In the medulla the most prominent connections are to the nuclei "Z" and "x" of Brodal and Pompeiano, to the rostral portion of n.
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