Mr. L., a 36-year-old mental patient, has lived the last 18 years in Ionia State Hospital in Michigan. He has a history of uncontrollable rages and is alleged to have murdered and then raped a nurse. Mr. L. had little hope of release until he recently volunteered and was selected to take part in a research program. The Lafayette Clinic at Wayne State University in Detroit had received $228,400 from the Michigan legislature to compare psychosurgery to drug therapy as treatments for violent behavior. Mr. L. opted for the surgical procedure, which if successful would allow him to be reintegrated into society. unsuccessful, he would go back to Ionia. Before the operation could be performed, however, Gabe Kaimowitz, a Michigan Legal Services lawyer and member of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, found out about it and charged that the patient was being held on an obsolete law, that the circumstances made informed consent impossible and that public funds should not be used for such operations. The case went to court and the patient changed his mind about the operation, claiming he was not fully informed about the effects of psychosurgery (possible blunting of intellect and emotion). The court ruled that Mr. L. was being held unconstitu-tionally and ordered his release (although he may now go to prison for murder and rape). The publicity surrounding the case forced the Michigan legislature to withdraw support from the research. John Gavin, a 22-year-old mental patient, has been in and out of mental institutions since 1968. During a recent hospitalization he blinded himself in one eye and injured the other eye by either burning himself with a cigarette or smashing his head against a wall (reports are conflicting). Because drug therapy and other treatments have failed to help, Gavin's parents and hospital authorities decided in March that brain surgery was necessary to control him. This is one of the severe, intractable cases where this kind of surgery may be appropriate, said Donald P. Becker, a neurosurgeon at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. We couldn't stand to see him tear himself apart piece by piece, said Gavin's mother. But before the operation could be performed, anonymous phone calls (possibly from one of Gavin's fellow patients) alerted the Virginia attorney general's office, the hospital and the Washington Post. The caller raised ethical and legal questions about the operation's necessity and the patient's ability to give informed consent. The planned psychosurgery has been postponed until thorough state and hospital investigations answer the questions raised. These two cases illustrate the ethical complexity and increasing public sensitivity toward surgical modification of behavior. A major factor in arousing concern and halting (at least temporarily) such attempts at psychosurgery has been the work of Washington psychiatrist Peter R. Breggin. For the past two years he has been preaching long and loud against all forms of His message has been delivered in person at scientific meetings, in newspapers, magazines and journals, on television in England, in his novels and at great length in the Congressional Record (SN: 3/11/72, p. 174). Breggin's most recent hearing was last month before the Senate Health Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). Attacking a variety of psychosurgical procedures and practitioners, Breggin charged: If America ever falls to totalitarianism, the dictator will be a behavioral scientist and the chief of police will be armed with lobotomy and psychosurgery. Telling the other side of the story were Robert G. Heath of Tulane University and Orlando J. Andy of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Since 1950 Heath has been developing techniques for implanting electrodes in the brains of patients (SN: 4/22/72, p. 263). His work involves localizing the pathways of emotion and feeling in the brain. Once the pathway is pinpointed, an electrode can be inserted and various feelings (pain or pleasure) can be elicited. He has performed this type of operation on 65 patients, and he emphasized the widespread thera-