WWII Navy Nurse Veteran Had Life From Hell After VA Lobotomy

Lobotomy

Dorothy Ludden, Survivor of VA Lobotomy Program, Dies
One of the 2,000 World War II veterans who received the procedure
Wall Street Journal
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
Feb. 23, 2015

Mrs. Ludden married after her brain surgery and raised three sons. Her volatile temper, odd behavior and limited emotional range left scars on her family that lasted decades.

Dorothy Ludden, one of the last survivors of a government program that lobotomized mentally-ill World War II veterans, died on Monday. She was 94.

During the war, Mrs. Ludden served as a Navy nurse in stateside military hospitals. She was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons soon after her discharge from active duty in 1946. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, she underwent a lobotomy at the Veterans Administration hospital in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

The Tuscaloosa facility was one of 50 VA hospitals that performed the controversial brain surgery to treat intractable mental illness among veterans. Some 2,000 veterans were lobotomized by the government before the first antipsychotic drug, Thorazine, came on the market in the mid-1950s.
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The U.S. government lobotomized roughly 2,000 mentally ill veterans — and likely hundreds more — during and after World War II, according to a cache of forgotten memos, letters and government reports unearthed by The Wall Street Journal.

“They got the notion they were going to come to give me a lobotomy,” Roman Tritz, a World War II bomber pilot, told the newspaper in a report published Wednesday. “To hell with them.”

Tritz said the orderlies at the veterans hospital pinned him to the floor, and he initially fought them off. A few weeks later, just before his 30th birthday, he was lobotomized.

Besieged by psychologically damaged troops returning from the battlefields of North Africa, Europe and the Pacific, the Veterans Administration performed the brain-altering operation on former servicemen it diagnosed as depressives, psychotics and schizophrenics, and occasionally on people identified as homosexuals, according to the report.

Tritz was one of roughly 2,000 World War II veterans lobotomized during and after the war, a recent Wall Street Journal investigation discovered. The procedure, once lauded as a "miracle cure" for nearly all types of mental illness, has since fallen so far out of favor in the medical community that it's rarely even discussed, said Mario DeSanctis, medical director at the Tomah VA. Vet one of thousands lobotomized by government after WWII, La Crosse Tribune, Wis., By Allison Geyer Published: February 8, 2014

"Miracle Cure" injured mind of an American hero

The injured mind of an American hero

Vet one of thousands lobotomized by government after WWII
La Crosse Tribune, Wis.
By Allison Geyer
Published: February 8, 2014

Tritz was one of roughly 2,000 World War II veterans lobotomized during and after the war, a recent Wall Street Journal investigation discovered. The procedure, once lauded as a "miracle cure" for nearly all types of mental illness, has since fallen so far out of favor in the medical community that it's rarely even discussed, said Mario DeSanctis, medical director at the Tomah VA.

LA CROSSE, Wis. — Roman Tritz dreamed of flying.

Gripping the yoke of a four-engine B-17 Flying Fortress was excitement and adventure for the boy who was born in Portage, Wis., in 1923 and left school after eighth grade to help his father with the dairy cows.

"What did I like about flying?" A distant smile brightens his watery blue eyes. "Everything ...."

It was duty to his country that brought him to enlist in what was then known as the U.S. Army Air Force after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The oldest of 10 children on the farm, Tritz "figured he should be the one to go" and shipped off to England in fall 1944 to join the 728th Squadron of the 452nd Bombardment Group.

"That was the way it was," he said.

He flew 34 combat missions, including one that took him deep into enemy skies so thick with German anti-aircraft fire that he and his crew had to sign an affidavit swearing that they weren't forced to go. Halfway there, some wanted to turn back. Tritz told them to be brave.
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Report: VA lobotomized 2,000 disturbed veterans

Report: VA lobotomized 2,000 disturbed veterans

UPDATE
House Lawmakers Press VA on Lobotomies
Agency Is Asked to Reassess Living Veterans Who Received Procedure Around World War II

Now I know how lucky my husband's uncle was after he ended up with shell shock during WWII. He was given a choice to be institutionalized or go live on a farm for the rest of his life. He picked the farm.

Report: VA lobotomized 2,000 disturbed veterans
Army Times
December 11, 2013

The U.S. government lobotomized roughly 2,000 mentally ill veterans — and likely hundreds more — during and after World War II, according to a cache of forgotten memos, letters and government reports unearthed by The Wall Street Journal.

“They got the notion they were going to come to give me a lobotomy,” Roman Tritz, a World War II bomber pilot, told the newspaper in a report published Wednesday. “To hell with them.”

Tritz said the orderlies at the veterans hospital pinned him to the floor, and he initially fought them off. A few weeks later, just before his 30th birthday, he was lobotomized.

Besieged by psychologically damaged troops returning from the battlefields of North Africa, Europe and the Pacific, the Veterans Administration performed the brain-altering operation on former servicemen it diagnosed as depressives, psychotics and schizophrenics, and occasionally on people identified as homosexuals, according to the report.

The VA’s use of lobotomy, in which doctors severed connections between parts of the brain then thought to control emotions, was known in medical circles in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and is occasionally cited in medical texts. But the VA’s practice, never widely publicized, long ago slipped from public view. Even the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says it possesses no records detailing the creation and breadth of its lobotomy program.

The Wall Street Journal’s reporting series began with Wednesday’s Forgotten Soldiers and included a documentary, archived photos, maps and medical records.
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