What is the difference between a prefrontal lobotomy and a transorbital lobotomy?
The two procedures differ in how the doctor gets access to the brain. In a prefrontal lobotomy, the doctor drills holes in the side or on top of the patient’s skull to get to the frontal lobes. In the transorbital lobotomy, the brain is accessed through the eye sockets. Freeman started out by doing prefrontal lobotomies, but later created the transorbital lobotomy which he considered to be a “new, improved” version of the original procedure. The transorbital lobotomy left no scars (apart from two black eyes); took less than 10 minutes; could be performed outside of an operating room; and according to Freeman, produced better results.
