Gottlieb Burkhardt

Gottlieb Burkhardt was a Swiss physician who, in the late 1880s, experimented with removing parts of the brain cortex in patients suffering from auditory hallucinations and other symptoms later defined as schizophrenia. His goal was not to cure patients but to calm them. Burkhardt operated on six patients, with one dying post-surgery and another later committing suicide. However, several patients became easier to manage. This work was influenced by German physiologist Friedrich Goltz's experiments on dogs.1

Psychosurgery, the treatment of mental disorders through brain surgery, was further developed by António Egas Moniz in 1935 with the procedure called lobotomy. This involved severing nerve fibers connecting the thalamus with the brain's frontal lobes. While psychosurgery can reduce severe symptoms, it often leads to undesirable effects like apathy and reduced emotional response. Modern psychosurgery involves much smaller brain areas and is considered a radical procedure used only when other treatments fail.21