A tribute to Johann Gottlieb Burckhardt-Heussler (1836–1907), the pioneer of psychosurgery

Abstract

Introduction

Johann Gottlieb Burckhardt-Heussler was a Swiss psychiatrist, who pioneered controversial psychosurgical procedures. Burckhardt-Heussler extirpated various brain regions from six chronic psychiatric patients under his care. By removing cortical tissue he aimed to relieve the patients of symptoms, including agitation, rather than effect a cure.

Objectives

To present the scientific papers of Johann Gottlieb Burckhardt-Heussler on psychosurgery.

Aims

To review available literature and to show evidence that Burckhardt-Heussler made a significant contribution to the development of psychosurgery.

Methods

A biography and private papers are presented and discussed, followed by a literature review.

Results

The theoretical basis of Burckhardt-Heussler's psychosurgical procedure was influenced by the zeitgeist and based on his belief that psychiatric illnesses were the result of specific brain lesions. His findings were ignored by scientists to make them disappear into the mists of time, while the details of his experiments became murky. Decades later, it was the American neurologist Walter Freeman II, performing prefrontal lobotomies since 1936, who found it inconceivable that the medical community had forgotten Burckhardt-Heussler and who conceded that he was familiar with, and probably even influenced by, Burckhardt's work.

Conclusion

It is partly thanks to Burckhardt-Heussler's pioneering work that modern psychosurgery has gradually evolved from irreversible ablation to reversible stimulation techniques, including deep brain stimulation.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.