Egas Moniz: geniusz, pechowiec czy pomyłka Komitetu Noblowskiego?

Abstract

Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz is one of the most intriguing figures in the history of medicine. While an invention of angiography in 1927 is his acknowledged merit, lobotomy, invented in 1935 became a black legend of psychiatry, although sporadically it is performed also today. There are even postulates to withdraw the Nobel Prize, which Moniz received in 1949 for inventing the lobotomy. Moniz in fact re-invented lobotomy, primarily introduced in 1888 by a Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt and later forgotten. Its popularisation, including its abuses was chiefly done by American neurologists Walter Freeman and James Watts. Aside the science, Moniz was an exceptionally colourful person, a merited politician, Portuguese minister of foreign affairs, the head of its delegation at Versailles in 1918, in 1951 he was even proposed a position of a President of Portugal. He was a versatile humanist and a writer, even a gambling expert. His person is hard for black and white evaluation, definitely deserving a re-evaluation from today's historical perspective.

Two statues of António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz GCSE GCIB (c. 1874–1955)

“…Dr Roy also supported the establishment of the state's first polio clinic and worked to exponentially increase the number of tuberculosis control establishments. 2 His tenure would also see the establishment of a number of universities. He believed that education was a direct tool to prosperity; he would seemingly establish educational institutions specifically in those areas that were the most deprived, as a method to further education amongst the natives.…”

“…His research led to the radical development of prefrontal leucotomy to treat mental illness and in 1935, Moniz instructed the first psychosurgery of a 63-year-old woman's removal of white matter fibres from her frontal lobe. 2 Due to its reported success, Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949. He continued operating his private medical practice despite becoming paraplegic upon near-fatal gunshot wounds inflicted by a schizophrenic patient of his.…”

Egas Moniz: 90 Years (1927–2017) from Cerebral Angiography

“…His technique was further improved by German and Swedish physicians and was proven to be of undisputable value for the diagnosis of several intracranial disorders. Although he received for three times the nomination for the Nobel Prize (1928, 1932 and 1937) for the discovery of cerebral angiography, he was never awarded for the discovery of this technique (Ligon, 1998 ; Lass et al, 2012 ). Despite the importance of his revolutionary diagnostic tool, Moniz won the Nobel Prize for Medicine on 1949 (together with Walter Rudolf Hess) for another technique he had described later: the prefrontal leucotomy (“the white cut”), undoubtedly less important and noteworthy than brain angiography, which was used for the treatment of psychoses (Moniz, 1936a , b ; Damásio, 1975 ; Tierney, 2000 ; Tan and Yip, 2014 ).…”

“…This multifaceted perspective is analyzed by Lass et al ( 2012 ) in a article titled: “Egas Moniz: a genius, unlucky looser or a Nobel Committee error?”. This also explains the beauty of a article by Gross and Schäfer ( 2011 ) which was dedicated to reconstruct the historical background of Moniz work and Nobel Prize.…”