Remember watching that movie with Jack Nicholson and the big Indian guy that picked up the water fountain and threw it through the window? It was about inmates in a mental hospital and if you behave badly the head nurse lobotomizes you by taking out pieces of your brain out. Pretty barbaric and completely useless and that is why the procedure has been blacklisted.
But not in China. The Asia Wall Street Journal has this article today on the use of brain surgeries to cure schizophrenia. What is worse is that the doctors also lump in depression as a good reason to lobotomize you. Article
Mr. Mi Zhantao suffered from depression and had trouble socializing. The doctors at No. 454 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army decided that he suffered from schizophrenia and proceeded to drill "tiny holes in the young man's skull, inserting a 7½-inch-long needle and burning small areas of brain tissue thought to be causing his problems". What's even more alarming is that a doctor now gets 90% of his income from bonuses that depend on the business he personally generates.
By the way, I think it is a good idea to never, ever, ever walk into a hospital with a number for its name.
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Hippocrates never made it to Asia, but it would be a mistake to suggest that his oath had some effect on lobotomies in the West because brain surgeries were somewhat common to treat mental defects in US mental hospitals. However, what always surprised me was the success rate of lobotomies in curing mental defects. Cutting a chunk of the brain out or swirling around a metal rod in the right place was pretty damn effective in curing problems such as schizophrenia. The only problem was that it often resulted in turning the patient into actual sociopaths with little to no sympathy/empathy for/with other human beings. They went from being crazies to displaying Phineas Gage post-steel rod through the head like personalities towards others. Of note, the work productivity for countless lobotomees was increased at the expense of turning them into jerks. OWFOTCN is a poor portrayal of the results of an actual lobotomy.
Howard, you're always suggesting that China needs a strong paternal central government. If lobotomies are going to turn unproductive workers into productive workers then that is a simple cost-benefit analysis for the state to make.
But that is repugnant in a democracy.
On the upside, it sounds like the hospitals are making their hospitals more capitalistic. (I'm not going to draw the emoticon, just picture a wink and a smile)
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