The first lobotomy procedures performed involved cutting a hole in the patients skull and injecting ethanol into the brain to destroy the fibers that connected the frontal lobe to other parts of the brain.

Later, in the 1940s Moniz introduced a surgical instrument called a leucotome, which contains a loop of wire that when rotated, creates a circular lesion in the brain

Lewis, T. Lobotomy: Definition, Procedure & History.(2014, August 28)

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