Showing results by author "Hugh Levinson" in All Categories

This fascinating BBC Radio 4 documentary tells the story of three key figures in the strange history of lobotomy, and for the first time explores the popularity of the operation in the UK. The story starts in 1935 with a Portuguese doctor called Egas Moniz, who pioneered a radical surgical procedure on the brain which he asserted would relieve the symptoms of mental disorder. His results were seized on the following year by Walter Freeman in the US, an enthusiastic neurosurgeon who eventually went on to perform around 3,000 lobotomies over the course of his career.

During a nearly 40-year career in the United States Army, Hugh Shelton has been known as a straight shooter - when he speaks he means what he says. Whether serving under a Democratic president or a Republican president, whether in a war that was popular at home or not, Hugh Shelton gave all he had, and asked nothing less of the men and women who worked for him. Politically independent, Shelton told the truth - not what his superiors wanted to hear.