Transorbital lobotomy at Eastern State Hospital (1951-1954).

1. Lobotomy was one of several somatic treatments for psychiatric illness developed in Europe during the 1930s, and was first performed in the United States in 1936. 2. Patients who underwent transorbital lobotomy at Eastern State Hospital were carefully chosen candidates who had exhausted psychiatric treatment options and for whom little else could be offered. 3. Transorbital lobotomy was displaced in 1955 by rauwolfia and chlorpromazine; no lobotomies were performed thereafter at Eastern State Hospital.