Better to have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomyIn the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Mcmurphy, the main character, undergoes frontal lobotomy ("cutting of the lobes") to cure his "mental illness", after several rounds of ECT had failed to crush his spirit. In the final scenes of the film we see from his character that he has been reduced from an animated, hyperactive state to a vegetative state. McMurphy's friend, the boss, tries to talk to him, but he looks straight ahead and doesn't respond. The film is set in an asylum in the 1950s, at the height of the lobotomy craze in the United States. Nearly 20,000 documented lobotomies were performed between 1939 and 1950, and thousands more in other countries (1). The procedure was initially used instead of electronic shock therapy, for turbulent patients who did not respond well to ECT. Lobotomy has been applied as a “fix-all” solution for people with all types of major or minor mental disorders. Of course, such an invasive procedure should only be used as a last resort in severe cases of debilitating diseases. Many doctors, looking for a quick fix for their patients, have used the procedure in case of "unwanted behavior". Unfortunately, such a broad criterion meant that everything from schizophrenia to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) to general unruly behavior could be treated by lobotomy. In Japan many of the lobotomized people were just children who didn't behave well or did poorly in school. What started the lobotomy craze? As with any achievement, it's hard to say what exactly caused such a gruesome surgery to explode in popularity. We can begin by exploring the origins of lobotomy in general: In th...... middle of paper ......d for the rest of their lives. He made so many people worse." As for McMurphy, by the end of the film it is clear that he has no way out of the mental hospital, because he is almost a vegetable, and no one in such a state could be self-sufficient. And so, by killing him, the Chief is giving his friend freedom and is therefore actually demonstrating an incredible amount of love and reverence for his friend who fell victim to the "system", as so many others who are STILL in the asylum have done today. References1) History of Lobotomy, http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n02/historia/lobotomy.htm2) PBS website, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entnes/ dh35lo.html3) Nobel Prize website, http://nobelprize.org/medicine/articles/moniz/4) Research articles, http://www.psychosurgery.org/articles.html5) The frontal lobe, http: //www .cbc/natureofthings/features/brain/brainmain.htm