The medical procedure, lobotomy, was considered a groundbreaking procedure that promised hope to the most distressed mentally ill patients and their families. What began as an operation of last resort was soon being performed at some fifty state asylums, often with devastating results. The neurologist, Walter Freeman, in little more than a decade after his rise to fame, was decried as a moral monster, and that the lobotomy was one of the most barbaric mistakes of modern medicine. Through interviews with former patients and their families, students, and medical historians, get an unprecendented look at one of the darkest chapters in psychiatric history.