António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz (November 29, 1874 - December 13, 1955) was a Portuguese physician and neurologist. He was born in Avanca, Portugal. He was the inventor of prefrontal leucotomy (also known as frontal lobotomy) as a surgical approach to the radical treatment of several kinds of mental diseases; one of the several types of psychosurgery. For this work, Moniz received the Nobel Prize in 1949, jointly with the Swiss neurophysiologist Walter Rudolf Hess. Egas Moniz - Copyright Nobel Foundation File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... November 29 is the 333rd (in leap years the 334th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1874 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Neurology is the branch of medicine dealing with the nervous system and its disorders. ... Psychosurgery is the practice of performing surgery on the brain to treat or alleviate severe mental disease. ... Psychosurgery is the practice of performing surgery on the brain to treat or alleviate severe mental disease. ... The Scream, the famous painting commonly thought of as depicting the experience of mental illness. ... Psychosurgery is a term for surgeries of the brain or autonomic nervous system involving the severance of neural pathways to effect a change in behaviour, usually to treat or alleviate severe mental illness. ... Sir Edward Appletons medal Photographs of Nobel Prize Medals. ... 1949 is a common year starting on Saturday. ... Neurophysiology is a part of physiology as a science, which is concerned with the study of the nervous system. ... Walter Rudolf Hess (March 17, 1881 - August 12, 1973) was a Swiss physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1949 for mapping the areas of the brain involved in the control of internal organs. ...

Moniz studied medicine in the University of Coimbra and Neurology in Bordeaux and Paris, France. He returned to the University of Coimbra as Chairman of the Department of Neurology (1902), but soon left it to enter politics as a representative in the Portuguese parliament (1903-1917), as minister of Foreign Affairs (1918) and later as Ambassador to Spain, under the First Republic (1918-1919). He left politics, returned to the University of Lisbon, where, from 1921 to 1944, he was professor of Neurology. In 1927, he developed the technique of contrasted x-ray cerebral arteriography to diagnose several kinds of neurological disorders, such as tumors and arteriovenous malformations. Medicine on the Web NLM (National Library of Medicine, contains resources for patients and healthcare professionals) Virtual Hospital (digital health sciences library by the University of Iowa) Online Medical Dictionary Collection of links to free medical resources Category: Medicine ... The University of Coimbra (Portuguese: Universidade de Coimbra) is a Portuguese public university in Coimbra, Portugal. ... Neurology is the branch of medicine dealing with the nervous system and its disorders. ... City motto: Lilia sola regunt lunam undas castra leonem. ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... 1902 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... An aerial view of Parliament of India at New Delhi. ... Foreign Affairs is the foremost American journal of international relations. ... An ambassador, rarely embassador, is a diplomatic official accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization, to serve as the official representative of his or her own country. ... History of Portugal series Prehistoric Portugal Pre-Roman Portugal Roman Lusitania and Gallaecia Visigoths and Suevi Moorish rule and Reconquista First County of Portugal Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal Second County of Portugal Establishment of the Monarchy Consolidation of the Monarchy 1383–1385 Crisis Discoveries Portuguese Empire 1580 Crisis Iberian... The University of Lisbon (Universidade de Lisboa) is a leading public university in Lisbon, Portugal, and is composed by eight faculties. ... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... Angiography or arteriography is a medical imaging technique in which an X-ray picture is taken to visualize the inner opening of blood filled structures, including arteries, veins and the heart chambers. ... Neurology is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the central and peripheral nervous systems. ... Tumor (American English) or tumour (British English) originally means swelling, and is sometimes still used with that meaning. ... Arteriovenous malformation or AVM is a congenital disorder of the veins and arteries that make up the vascular system . ...

In 1936, Egas Moniz and his associate Almeida Lima developed for the first time a surgical technique to interrupt the nerve fibers which connect the thalamus (a relay for sensory information coming into the brain) to the prefrontal cortex (already known at the time as a brain structure involved in higher intellectual functions of the brain, and in emotions, as well). His technique was widely used around the world in the next decade, and Moniz received many honours and international recognition, culminating with the Nobel Prize. The thalamus is a part of the brain. ... (See also sense) A sensory system is a part of the nervous system that consists of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and those parts of the brain responsible for processing the information. ... // Location and Function The prefrontal cortex is the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain, lying in front of the motor and associative areas. ... Please help to figure out license type for the image Comparative brain sizes. For other articles about other subjects named brain see brain (disambiguation). ... In psychology and common terminology, emotion is the language of a persons internal state of being, normally based in or tied to their internal (physical) and external (social) sensory feeling. ...

Prefrontal leucotomy subsequently fell into disrepute, after its widespread use was shown to have created far more damage than benefit, and because of its irreversible nature. Drug treatments for mental illnesses are now the treatment of choice for mental illness.

Dr. Moniz became an invalid due to a gunshot to his spine, fired by one of his patients. He died in 1955, in Lisbon, Portugal. 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... District Lisbon Mayor   - Party Carmona Rodrigues PSD Area 84. ...

See also

• Nobel Prize controversies

The Nobel Prizes are a series of awards, posthumously instituted by bequest of Alfred Nobel, to be awarded to individuals who had served humanity in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. ...

References

• The 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology
• Egas Moniz Museum

Source

• Why Did Moniz get the Prize
  
• Psychosurgery.org
• Oral Histories of Lobotomy victims
• New England Journal of Medicine article
• The History of Psychosurgery
  
• Renato M.E. Sabbatini, PhD
  
• Brain & Mind, September 1997.
  

Reproduced with permission Renato M.E. Sabbatini Renato Marcos Endrizzi Sabbatini, Brazilian biomedical and computer scientist, educator, science writer, entrepreneur and administrator, born in Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil, on 20 February 1947. ...