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Although history would view the procedure differently, at the time, it was seen as a means of liberating the mentally afflicted, and the neurosurgeon was perceived as the liberator. About the surgery and reasons for it, the article said, “It is the brain not of an insane mind but of a mind that lives in an impossible, illusory world of its own creation. The psychosurgeon thrusts his knife deep into that brain on either side, cuts at exactly the right angle in exactly the right plane and usually succeeds in turning an ingrowing and a harassed mind outward and in transforming a personality.”

As the caption described this image in "Turning the Mind Inside Out," "A mirror above the operating table shows an actual operation. Doctor Watts is to the right, under the lamp."

Saturday Evening Post article by Waldemar Kaempffert; photography by Harris A. Ewing.

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