Lobotomy

Lobotomy or leucotomy is the destruction or removal of the prefrontal lobes of the cortex of the brain.

This process was first popularized by 
Antonia Egas Moniz in 1935. 
Moniz was a Portuguese psychiatrist 
who developed this method as a means
of controlling aggressive or violent 
behavior (which is one of the symptoms
of bipolar) 

Moniz won a joint Nobel Prize for his 
work in 1949 with Walter Hess, 
a Swiss physiologist.

The original method was modified in 1937 by Watson, so that almost all the nerve tracts connecting the prefrontal lobes with the rest of the brain were severed.

Lobotomy practice has declined in the past years due to causing side effects in patients so that they become inactive and lacking in initiative.