(psychiatry) an
operation which, while the
patient is being electrically shocked, thrusts an ordinary
dime-
store ice pick into each eye and reaches up to
rip the
brain apart.
a
psychiatric procedure in which the frontal lobes of the
brain are separated from the rest of the
brain by cutting the connecting
nerve fibers. Transorbital means measured or drawn across between the
orbits (the bony cavity of the skull containing the eyes; the eye sockets); occurring by way of or passing through the eye
socket. Leukotomy comes from the
French leucotomie, leuco referring to the
brain's white
matter (
nerve tissue, particularly of the spinal
column and
brain) and -tomy, a combining
form, used here to mean an incision or cutting of an organ, as designated by the initial
element of the
term. "... We'
ve got to give you eighteen extra shocks and transorbital leukotomies and trowokkkh!"