Gottlieb Burckhardt (1836-1907): 19th-Century Pioneer of Psychosurgery

Abstract

Gottlieb Burckhardt was a 19th-century Swiss psychiatrist who introduced the psychosurgical method known as topectomy as a means to relieve the symptoms of aggression and agitation in individuals diagnosed with mental disease. Specifically, he performed topical excision of part of the cerebral cortex on 6 patients with chronic schizophrenia. Most of these patients became more approachable and easier to manage, but they also showed signs of aphasia or seizures, and 2 died soon after the surgery. Burckhardt’s presentation of the results of his surgical procedures to the Berlin Medical Congress in 1890 caused an enormous controversy within the European medical community and resulted in his ostracism from it. He continued practicing, however and dispensing advice in his role as a mental hospital director, though he soon gave up his surgical endeavours. His innovative theory of higher cerebral functions anticipated the lobotomy procedure that was developed nearly half a century later by the neurologist Egas Moniz (1874-1955).