Rest in Peace Mr. Shaw
I'm posting this because the man in the story was a lobotomy victim:
A HUMAN skeleton found in the field in Holywell had to be identified by scars on the bones on the remains.
Mystery will forever surround the death of Ronald Shaw, 71, who disappeared from his home in Ellesmere Port on July 28 last year.
Mr Shaw (pictured), an ex-serviceman, was a diagnosed schizophrenic and was commonly known as a wanderer.
...
Mr Raymond Shaw described his brother as very fastidious and had a particular peculiarity in that he would keep a running diary of his daily events. A vital piece of evidence in identifying the body was the scarring on the skull from a lucotomy (lobotomy) operation Mr Shaw had undergone as a child.
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A HUMAN skeleton found in the field in Holywell had to be identified by scars on the bones on the remains.
Mystery will forever surround the death of Ronald Shaw, 71, who disappeared from his home in Ellesmere Port on July 28 last year.
Mr Shaw (pictured), an ex-serviceman, was a diagnosed schizophrenic and was commonly known as a wanderer.
...
Mr Raymond Shaw described his brother as very fastidious and had a particular peculiarity in that he would keep a running diary of his daily events. A vital piece of evidence in identifying the body was the scarring on the skull from a lucotomy (lobotomy) operation Mr Shaw had undergone as a child.
read the rest
1 Comments:
This story is a sad reminder that, although medicine may move on quickly (neurosurgeons claim to have found less damaging types of operation; psychiatrists decide that it is OCD or depression, rather than schizophrenia, that can be cured by surgery), the patients have to live a lifetime with the consequences.
Another local newspaper had this to say about Mr Shaw:
"At an inquest in Flint, Raymond Shaw described his brother as a 'genius' who was driven to a nervous breakdown by a teacher who bullied him.
In his mid-teens, Mr Shaw was sent to a mental hospital, where was given a lobotomy. Holes drilled into both sides of his skull helped to identify his body.
Raymond said his brother never recovered from the trauma.
After a few years serving in the army, Mr Shaw was discharged at 18 due to a knee problem and did not work again.
He received treatment for mental illness for the rest of his life and was cared for by nurses and his brother and sister-in-law.
The court heard Mr Shaw had a habit of hoarding, wrapping things up in plastic bags and writing a diary of his life on notepaper.
Doctors confirmed, for the last few years of his life, Mr Shaw did not show psychotic symptoms and seemed to be doing well. But in July 2004 he went missing from his bungalow."
Mr Shaw must have been operated on in the late 1940s or early 1950s when psychosurgery was at it's height and over a thousand people a year were operated on in England and Wales. A few, like Mr Shaw, were in their teens while many were in their twenties and thirties.
It reminds me of another story about survival after psychosurgery which appeared in my local paper a few years ago under a headline "Pensioner was victim of £25,000 repair scam". Mr Weir, the victim, who was only in his sixties, was described as too frail to give evidence in court as a result of a brain operation for schizophrenia in 1966.
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